by Gary Hansen
After the tour at Hoover, the two men had headed northeast on I-15 toward St. George, Utah. The two-hour journey and dinner afterwards had given them ample time to rehash the events of the two dramatic days in June. Although Grant had known Fred for years, June had changed their relationship. They were bonded by the experience, and both knew they would be close friends for life.
During the conversation over dinner, Fred asked if Grant had heard from Roland Blackwell. Fred had smiled when he asked the question, knowing the answer. Of course he hadn't heard from Roland, nor would he ever. Roland and Grant had become bitter enemies in the aftermath of those two days. Fred had joked that they should make up and spend Thanksgiving together. Grant laughed and agreed that the only time the commissioner would be allowed in his home would be when Grant had a carving knife in his hand.
Back in June, when Grant and the others had flown back from Mexico into the United States, without the environmentalist, and had told their story to the authorities, federal charges were filed against Grant for illegal pursuit across international borders, illegal border crossing, and even abetting a felon. Although all charges were eventually dropped, Roland and the Bureau of Reclamation had placed Grant on disciplinary suspension while they conducted their own internal investigation. To add insult to injury, the Bureau had filed a restraining order against Grant preventing him from approaching within ten miles of any dam or edifice controlled by the Bureau of Reclamation.
As part of the suspension, Grant had been warned not to talk to any media representatives, or he would be immediately terminated and his pension would be forfeited. Although Grant had thought the treatment was unfair, he had tolerated it, thinking that eventually the truth would be known. However, when the Bureau publicly blamed Grant for the failures of Head Gate Rock, Palo Verde, and Imperial Dams, Grant had heard enough. In mid July, he agreed to a series of interviews on television to clear his name. He told the truth, including the Bureau's lack of support for Hoover-Two, which experts agreed had saved Hoover, Davis, and Parker Dams. Governor Rally Jenkins of Nevada appeared on Larry King Live and backed up Grant's story. The Bureau of Reclamation fired Grant in retaliation. Grant reported his treatment on national news. The public believed Grant. A media circus followed, and editorials around the country screamed for the government to throttle management at the Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau became a public example of big bad government. A week later, Roland Blackwell resigned, saying that he wanted to spend more time with his family. The next day, Grant was reinstated at the Bureau, and the President of the United States flew to Colorado and held a press conference, publicly thanking him for his heroic efforts at Hoover and the other dams downstream. The helicopter flight into Mexico was never mentioned.
No, Grant and Commissioner Blackwell would never be friends.
After dinner in St. George, Grant and Fred retired to separate rooms of a small motel on
St. George Blvd.
They awoke early, ate a quick breakfast, then drove toward LakePowell. They talked continuously and marveled at how the country had reacted to the bombings.
After the dust settled in late June, the environmentalists went crazy. There were parades in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. T-shirts were sold by the thousands. Many showed a picture of the Glen Canyon Dam being blown up by a mushroom cloud of fire. The Los Angeles Times and other prominent newspapers across the country showed a front-page color shot of some pelicans swimming in the restored Colorado River Delta in Mexico. Environmentalists dominated TV talk shows and speculated how fast the delta would recover. They hypothesized how many birds would return, and guessed at how many fish would nest in the delta next year and the year after. There were environmental theories in abundance and the media seemed willing to oblige them all.
By the fourth of July, a rumor took hold that the bomber had survived. Many claimed to have seen him. Some said he was short, some tall, but all described him as a skinny guy with a limp from his broken leg, both of which had been reported in the news. Some said that he was living in Mexico, but the majority opinion had him moving to Oregon where he was preparing to single-handedly do something to stop deforestation.
For the first few days after the incident, helicopters had flown grid patterns over the Gulf of California searching for his body. They found the four-wheeler, but not the environmentalist. The missing body fueled the rumors that he was still alive, but Grant didn't believe it.
By early July, the FBI had raided the RV storage facility in Page and confiscated the first white pickup. They had already retrieved the second truck, parked just off the highway in Mexico. From the two vehicles, they figured out the bomber's identity, which led them to cell phone records of the phones used to detonate GlenCanyon, credit card receipts for food and gas on the bomber's route, and a rundown house in East Las Vegas with traces of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the back yard. They also found some unused homemade detonators in one of the kitchen cabinets. The license plate on a motorcycle parked in the garage matched one that passed through a roadblock in Utah the morning of the first bombing. They released the name of the bomber (more commonly referred to in the media as the environmentalist) as Jeffrey Calhoun, an electronics technician employed by a large lighting contractor in Las Vegas. Co-workers described him as a social recluse with no close friends, but very smart, especially with electronic devices. Neighbors described him as private. Most of his acquaintances were aware of his environmental concerns, and in fact many considered him fanatical. An elderly woman next door said that Calhoun refused to water his lawn, eventually converting the landscaping to cactus, and encouraged her to do the same. She refused, however, maintaining a healthy green lawn, which had seemed to irritate Calhoun.
At the public release of the perpetrator's identity, the environmental community vacillated back and forth on whether to embrace or vilify him. The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and the Glen Canyon Institute all confirmed he had once been a paid member of their organizations, but that his memberships had lapsed. Greenpeace, in a widely attended and televised ceremony, announced an honorary lifetime achievement award to Jeffrey Calhoun and installed him into their hall of fame for positive environmental actions. The Sierra Club, on the other hand, tried to distance itself from him, claiming that they believed Calhoun was not the perpetrator, but had been framed by a right-wing conspiracy cooked up by the federal government. They had no explanation for why Calhoun had not been seen since those two days in June.
As Grant and Fred started getting closer to LakePowell, Grant started to feel giddy. He knew that seeing the remnants of the dam would bring back strong emotions. The image he saw when the Gulfstream had flown over the dam back in June, where a huge column of water sprayed out of the face of the dam, would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Fred interrupted Grant's thoughts. "Look at that," he said, pointing up ahead. "I thought they weren't going to tell anybody about this."
Grant saw a bunch of cars parked off both sides of the road. "They weren't," he agreed. "There must've been a leak."
When Fred reached the other cars, he had to weave through them like a gauntlet. The crowd converged on the car and yelled. What they were saying was impossible to decipher. One girl held a sign that said "DON'T DROWN GLEN CANYON AGAIN. LET IT LIVE." Grant noticed that a couple of the vehicles were Volkswagen buses. He wondered what was up with environmentalists and the Volkswagen bus. How could someone claim to care about the environment then drive a car that belched out blue smoke?
After passing through the protestors, Fred stopped at a police roadblock. While a policeman checked Fred and Grant's credentials and marked their names off a list on his clipboard, Grant looked back at the group. Among the waving signs, he saw a small girl, who couldn't have been older than ten, waving a sign that said, "DAMN THE DAMS."
The policeman waved them through.
"Wow," Fred said. "They must think something's up."
In the days following the bombings, environmentalism had reigned.
The media was flooded with calls for legislation to assure that none of the dams on the Colorado be rebuilt, and that the delta be guaranteed an allocation of water for fishery and waterfowl habitat restoration. Public opinion, at least temporarily, seemed to support the environmentalists. The Democrats in the House of Representatives wrote a bill that would permanently outlaw any repair or rebuilding of GlenCanyon, Head Gate Rock, Palo Verde, or Imperial Dams. Additionally, they suggested that the United States immediately negotiate a treaty with Mexico, prohibiting Mexico from rebuilding the Morales Dam. The legislation would essentially leave Hoover as the only major dam on the Colorado. Initially unnoticed, deep inside the bill, was buried text that would have prevented repair of the California Aqueduct.
Although the press initially lauded the legislation as "exactly what this country needs," the farmers in Mexico, the farmers of Imperial Valley, native Americans of the Colorado Indian Reservation, and farmers in the Palo Verde Irrigation District all immediately announced opposition to the legislation, saying it would ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of farmers on the lower Colorado. A little slower to react were the communities in California, Arizona, and Mexico, who would be starved of their allocations of culinary water from the California Aqueducts, Central Arizona Project, and the Mexican diversions.
The last and most surprising opposition to the bill came from recreationalists. Although millions of middle class Americans loaded up their boats every weekend and headed for the nearest body of water to fish, water-ski, jet-ski, sun bathe, gamble, camp, ride motorcycles, stay in house boats, hike, skinny dip, consume alcohol, and ogle the bronzed flesh of the opposite sex, they had historically been an easy target, legislatively speaking.
Over the years they had endured closures of lakes for endangered fish, restrictions on speed, closures to off-road vehicles for tortoises, closures of hunting areas, no wake zones, restrictions on motor size, restrictions on oil type, elimination of personal watercraft in certain areas, closures of sand dunes to protect milkweeds, restrictions of two-stroke outboard engines, etc. However, the draining of LakePowell, a mecca for over three million recreationalists a year, had struck a nerve.
In late July, the Sierra Club organized a celebration at the site of where the Glen Canyon Dam had been. Thousands of environmentalists attended. However a much larger group of recreationalists, estimated at over thirty thousand, showed up to communicate their displeasure. Police staffing had been grossly underestimated. The two groups came together and communicated passionately. With virtually no law enforcement present, and a fifteen to one advantage, the recreationalists won handily. Hospitals in St. George, Utah reported treating over a hundred fractured noses. The Glen Canyon Massacre, as it would be known, shifted the momentum. The media took an anti-recreationalist bias, calling the boaters "thugs", and in retaliation, a million newspaper subscriptions were cancelled across the country. A movement began and congressmen and senators were called, emailed, written, and faxed. Republicans wrote a trillion-dollar appropriations bill to rebuild the Glen Canyon Dam and restore LakePowell, more than a thousand times its original construction cost. The debate was on.
Environmentalists argued that the Colorado River had been overly regulated and diverted, the evidence being a sand dune-swept river delta that no one in the United States had known about two months before. Recreationalists, city dwellers, farmers, Mexicans, and Native Americans, argued that God and the U.S. government had given the river to them for their use, and they had a right to use it. The country was split.
On September 1st, two months after the bombings, the Republican President of the United States, who some called a liberal, and others called a right wing fanatic, flew Air Force One to Yuma, Arizona, where he, along with a smattering of senators, both Republican and Democrat, boarded six helicopters. They first flew to Mexicali, Mexico, to pick up the newly elected President of Mexico, then south over the delta - a place none of them, including the Mexican President, had ever seen.
Although no media representatives were present, a leak in the President's staff described the tour as eye opening. The delta was much bigger than anticipated, covering a thousand square miles. What appeared to be hundreds of thousands of birds, but easily could have been millions, had already returned to the delta in huge flocks. Judging by the activity in the water, millions of fish had migrated upstream into the shallow water. At one point a helicopter flying lower than the others had spooked a flock of birds, forcing the chopper to take evasive action to avoid, at the very least, an embarrassing incident, if not an actual crash.
As a surprise to the entire group, and speculated to have been decided on the spur of the moment, the main helicopter with the two Presidents hovered at water level, and both presidents hopped out with bare feet and their pants rolled up to their knees. The water could not have been more than a foot deep. The helicopters backed off and let the two men wade around and talk about whatever they were talking about. The leak estimated they were in the water for about twenty minutes. Pictorial evidence of the wading party was not released by the White House. The trip had been ten days before. The White House said nothing of the event. No press conferences. No statements to the press. Nothing. However, in the week since the trip to Mexico, the President had been meeting with key members of Congress and the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats. Details of the meetings were not shared with the press, and remarkably, all congressmen and senators declined questions. The media and the entire country knew the subject of the talks, however. Unnamed sources revealed they were talking about appropriations bills to rebuild the dams on the Colorado River.
Environmentalists were not happy. TV, radio, and newspaper editorials called for the President to back off. A million-environmentalist-march was scheduled in the capital. Recreationalists, who now called themselves "working citizens with boats", farmers, Native Americans, and a mixture of smaller groups that stood for all kinds of things from hydroelectricity to culinary water rights, demonstrated all across the country. The number of supporters for the pro-dam movement was respectable, and surprising to many.
As Fred rounded the last turn, and the view opened to what should have been the Glen Canyon Dam, Grant first noticed the roadblocks on both sides of the canyon stopping motorists from driving off the cliffs where the silver arched GlenCanyonBridge had once been. Although partially obscured by the visitor center, a glance to Grant's left showed the empty expanse where the dam should have been, lined by shards of severed concrete still hanging from the rock wall. Across the canyon and up on the hill was the small city of Page, which was now isolated from the west by the missing bridge.
As Fred pulled the car to the entrance of the visitor center parking lot, they were stopped again. Their ID's and names were carefully checked. Grant was surprised to see that when the man flipped pages on the clipboard, the sheets contained photos of each invitee. They were checking pictures of every person. Grant had never heard of that. Finally they were waved through and told where to park. The front lot was almost full, the rear cordoned off and completely empty. Grant noticed five TV vans behind yellow tape in the corner of the front lot, one from each of the three national networks, one from Fox, and another from CNN. The little guys had obviously not been invited.
Grant and Fred straightened their ties and retrieved their jackets from the back seat before walking into the visitor center. Luckily, the air conditioning was running full blast, as the Arizona heat was much too hot for suits, even in mid September. After his eyes adjusted, Grant recognized Governor Rally Jenkins of Nevada over by the windows in conversation with a group of other men. When the governor saw Grant, he politely excused himself from the crowd and walked over to meet them.
The governor shook Grant's hand firmly. "Mr. Stevens. Nice to see you again."
Grant nodded. "Governor."
The governor winked at him. "You seem to have survived the challenges to your reputation."
Grant nodded. "I appreciated your comments." The govern
or's statements had gone a long way in swaying public opinion.
The governor looked around to verify that no one else was listening, then leaned close. "Well, off the record, if Roland Blackwell and those other morons had been making the decisions, we would have lost Hoover Dam. And, as you know, things would have been a lot worse downstream."
Grant knew the governor was right.
The governor stood up straight. "So what do you think about what happened in Washington last week?"
Grant shrugged. "I've never seen politicians be so secretive. Usually somebody spills the beans."
The governor laughed. "I agree. The President must have some serious leverage we don't know about." He glanced around nervously. "You guys work for the Bureau. What's going to happen here today?"
Grant smiled. He was going to ask the governor the same question. "We only know what you do. An important press conference. Mandatory. Be there."
The governor nudged Grant. "Come on. A week of political jockeying, followed by a press conference at the site of the Glen Canyon Dam. What else could it be? He's got the votes."
Grant nodded, but held out his hands. "Sounds logical, but then again, this President goes both ways. Who would have expected the trip to Mexico? He might announce that he agrees with the environmentalists, and he's going to let the river run."
The governor smirked. "Are you kidding? This guy has never voted for anything environmental in his life. None of those whackos voted for him, and none of them ever will, no matter what he does. And he knows it."
Grant agreed with the logic, except that none of the Democrats in Washington were talking about the secret negotiations, which meant they had something to gain. Of course, the Republicans weren't talking either, which made it even more confusing. Grant was trying to think of an answer when the governor saw someone else and quickly excused himself. They watched him go.