Forest Management

Grand Canyon

Monuments

The Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter’s Campaign to Protect and Restore Grand Canyon National Park and The Greater Grand Canyon Ecoregion

Background

The Greater Grand Canyon Ecoregion is one of largest and most diverse landscapes in Arizona. This area encompasses two national monuments, two national forests, several wilderness areas, and the crown jewel of our national parks: Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP). Despite special protections for the park and surrounding areas, there are numerous threats to this important landscape. Threats include logging of old growth forests, roads in important wildlife areas, invasive plant and animal species, lack of focus and understanding on how to sustain native species like bighorn sheep, pronghorn, and prairie dogs, regional haze that affects visibility, noisy air tours over backcountry areas, development in and around the Grand Canyon National Park itself, and water diversions via pipelines and groundwater pumping that have already impacted springs.

The Sierra Club, along with other organizations, has made great strides in our efforts to safeguard and restore the Park’s beauty and tranquility. As a result of our litigation with the Grand Canyon Trust and National Parks and Conservation Association, Southern California Edison signed a consent decree to install pollution-control equipment at its coal-fired Mohave Generating Station, an action that will help reduce haze in Grand Canyon National Park.

The Sierra Club is also working via litigation and public education to restore the Canyon’s natural quiet by reducing air tours. Recently a federal court ruled in favor of our lawsuit challenging the Federal Aviation Administration’s weak attempts to restore the natural quiet of the Park.

The Sierra Club won a major victory in December 2002 to keep a major development—Canyon Forest Village—from being constructed just outside the Park’s boundary. Local activists worked with former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to ensure the designation of the Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, just north of Grand Canyon National Park. Because of the efforts of Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, including the research on the important resources in this area, and the strong advocacy of the Sierra Club and other conservation organizations, we were able to ensure that the monument’s boundaries encompassed the key ecological aspects of that area; overall, the monument was much larger than originally planned.

Goals And Objectives

Our key goal is to ensure more protective management of Grand Canyon National Park and its associated forests and monuments. This will be accomplished through wilderness protection and management of the Park, more protective management of the Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, and protection of the National Forest areas. To ensure protection of this area we will work to:

• Ensure that a large portion of Grand Canyon National Park —the 90% proposed — is managed as wilderness.

• Ensure that the Colorado River Management Plan is protective of the Colorado River and the River Corridor.

• Restore the natural fire regime on the north rim and the associated areas in the Kaibab National Forest.

• Protect all remaining old growth and rare mature and large diameter trees in Greater Grand Canyon Ecoregion including in the Park, the Kaibab National Forest, and in the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument.

• Eliminate redundant roads and roads which foster resource damage in Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument. Limit development of new roads and protect roadless areas.

• Stop development proposals similar to the Canyon Forest Village in and near the Park.

• Keep the north rim of the Park primitive and limit development.

• Stop further water diversions from the Park and surrounding area such as the pipeline proposal for Jackass Canyon or groundwater pumping that affects the seeps and springs in the Canyon.

• Further reduce regional haze and increase visibility at the Park by ensuring that the Mojave Generating Station and other Power Plants use pollution control equipment that is the best available.

• Protect and restore native species of plants and wildlife and eliminate non-native invasive species to the greatest degree possible with minimal impact to the habitat and other species.

• Support further wilderness designation and protection of roadless areas.

Opportunities For Action

Over the next two years, we will promote a strong Colorado River Management Plan and a protective Backcountry Management Plan and participate in the development of a management plan for Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument. We will organize grassroots efforts around the implementation of the overall General Management Plan for the GCNP, including the recreational aspects, air tour noise limits and restoring natural quiet, fire and forest management, and limiting or eliminating regional haze.

We will continue our work to limit development around the Canyon. Over the past two years, there have been several proposals to divert additional water from the Colorado River either via Lake Powell or from the Park itself via Jackass Canyon. So far, through our media efforts and grassroots alerts, we have been able to stop these proposals. In the coming year however, we expect the Bureau of Reclamation to continue to push similar water-diversion proposals. Diverting water from the Colorado impacts the native fish and other wildlife as well as the native vegetation. It will also fuel rural sprawl development on the Arizona Strip, north of Grand Canyon. This effort provides an opportunity to organize as well.

We will develop a citizens’ proposal to protect the Park entitled “Protect and Restore the Natural Wonders of Grand Canyon National Park.” This comprehensive protection plan will outline key management measures such as limiting aircraft noise, mechanized equipment, and permanent structures, and, per the Wilderness Act, provide “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man….” We will develop the proposal so that it clearly outlines how to protect this vast area and how to integrate the various management proposals.

Now is a critical time for Grand Canyon; how the Park and surrounding areas will be managed and whether the Park’s wilderness values and natural quiet will be protected are key issues that will be addressed in the next few years. We look forward to working with you to ensure protection of this wonderful crown jewel of our national park system and to ensure that the ecological values of the Greater Grand Canyon region are protected as well.

For more information on this project and other conservation efforts by the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter, please contact Stacey Hamburg at (928) 774-6514; stacey.hamburg@sierraclub.org or Sandy Bahr at (602) 253-8633; grand.canyon.chapter@sierraclub.org.

Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633