The public gets a chance to weigh in on the proposal, the start of an environmental impact statement process, tonight at a downtown Salt Lake City hotel.

Dennis Kubly, chief of the bureau's adaptive management group, calls the new proposal an extension of the plan the agency adopted in 1995 - the focus of which was a series of test-flow experiments designed to flush more sediment downstream and create backwaters and sand bars for native fish habitat in the lower Colorado River.

"It's the next step in defining future operations of the dam and to comply with the Glen Canyon Protection Act," Kubly said Thursday. "We've done several [test flow] experiments, but this is bigger than anything we've done in the past and is likely to cover a longer period of time. This could last upward of 10 years."

The bureau's experimental plan is also part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought last year by five environmental groups, which charged that Reclamation failed to meet the requirements of the Glen Canyon Protection Act, established in 1992.

Cited as evidence: the continuing decline of the humpback chub, and a 2005 report issued by the U.S. Geological Survey that concluded that efforts to restore the Colorado River below the dam to something close to its natural state "have not produced the hoped-for restoration and maintenance" of endangered fish species.

"This lawsuit was an effort to get [Reclamation] to step up to the plate and live by the regulations. They just haven't been doing everything they were supposed to be doing in terms of the adaptive management plan," said Richard Ingebretson, founder and board member of the Glen Canyon Institute, one of the groups that joined the suit.

"In the short run, the adaptive management plan can help with the preservation of species on the Colorado River, so we're very interested in this," he added.

Kubly says the long-term experimental nature of the new plan could involve dam operations and potential modifications to the dam's intake structures. It could also involve the removal of non-native fish species below the dam.

"What we're trying to do is marry environmental compliance with adaptive management to make a better process out of it," Kubly said. "This is the next building block."

jbaird@sltrib.com

Comment?

The Bureau of Reclamation is seeking public comment on its proposed long-term experimental plan for the future management of Glen Canyon Dam and downstream ecosystem. A public hearing will be held tonight from 6-8 p.m. at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center, 255 W. Temple, in Salon I.