So will you please join me in a very warm welcome for our nation's public servants who has done such a great job
here as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Anne Castle.
Thank you very much Sally for those very kind words and welcome all of you to our 50th anniversary celebration.
I started working on Glen Canyon Dam issues pretty much the first day I came into the Department of the Interior.
It was by far the first significant issue that I worked on.
I have spent a very substantial amount of my time over the past five years working on
Colorado River issues in general and there's probably no other thing that I found more challenging, more frustrating, more rewarding
or more important than this unique Colorado River ecosystem.
There's been no other watershed that has been able to reach agreement with a neighboring country
that advanced both operational and environmental river management
and there is no other watershed that has recognized that even with all of the successes of
the past we need to step up our game and we need to do even better, and we need to do it together.
The Bureau of Reclamation did a Basin Study on the Colorado River and it confirmed and quantified what experts on the river had known
for decades and that is that there is going to be a significant shortfall between water supplies and demand in the coming decades.
The Basin Study not only gave us that information but it has now formed the basis for the partnerships that are needed to move
forward to address those challenges, to address that projected shortfall.
Within this complex and challenging Colorado River ecosystem, Glen Canyon Dam is the keystone.
Glen Canyon Dam is the fulcrum that regulates the flows between the upper and lower basin.
and it forms a buffer against the volatility of supplies that has been an issue in this basin
for millenia. While we celebrate today the 50th anniversary of Glen Canyon Dam,
as Secretary Jewell said we also have to acknowledge that this dam has had an impact.
this dam, this engineering marvel and the absolutely incredible lake that it created, these things are here to stay.
So it's up to all of us to ensure that the benefits that that the dam provides
that they continue but that we operate the dam in a way that is sensitive to the fact that one of the
world's greatest resources, the Grand Canyon sits right down stream from us.
We have to operate this dam in a way that sensitive to the fact that 40,000,000 people
in the southwest depend on this dam,
whether they know it or not. But they're counting on us to get that balance right.
We're working on balance, were working on getting that right by the high-flow protocol that Secretary Jewell referred to.
We are using the water flows that come out of this dam to redistribute the sediment in the main stem
up higher on the beds and banks so that we are replinishing beaches and backwaters
we're moving forward by having the National Park Service and Bureau of Reclamation work hard together, but also work hard with all with
different stakeholders that have interests in this river system to come up with a new long-term plan that better balances all of those resources
and we're doing it better by continuing the truly excellent science program on which all of these decisions have to be based.
We all have the privilege to be able to make a positive difference in the way this unique river system operates
and we'll also have the obligation that goes hand-in-hand with that privilege. The obligation to think long-term, not short-term,
the obligation to think holistically, not parochially, and the obligation to consider the greater good.
So my congratulations to all of you on this 50th anniversary, you all have an interest in this and I want to thank particularly the men and women
who have operated and managed this facility since 1964 for the benefit of the entire southwest
and for our future. So help me thank them. [applause]