The federal government is spending millions of dollars in Colorado to save endangered fish that, according to one organization, it’s allowing to dwindle in the Grand Canyon.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is embarking on a two-year process of putting together an environmental impact statement for a long-term experimental plan for operation of Glen Canyon Dam.

That study, said a Moab, Utah-based organization, Living Rivers, is a “cover-up” launched to mislead the public into supporting failed efforts to recover endangered species.

It is, actually, said Reclamation official Dennis Kubly, the beginning of an effort to balance management of Glen Canyon Dam with the needs of people and other species.

The idea, Kubly said, is to balance the operations of the dam with a multitude of needs, including the requirements of Colorado and other Upper Colorado River Basin states to deliver set amounts of water to the lower-basin states, the need for electrical generation, and the scenic needs of the Grand Canyon, as well as those of its fish.

“There are big stakes here,” Kubly said. “Let’s take the time to do it right and hopefully we won’t have to do it over.”

Reclamation, however, has a clear mission under the Endangered Species Act and the Grand Canyon Protection Act, said John Weisheit of Living Rivers.

The launch of the environmental impact statement follows three decades of studies and experimentation, Congressional interventions and millions of taxpayer dollars invested principally to reverse the decline of endangered species in Grand Canyon National Park, Weisheit said.

Under the adaptive-management program used by Reclamation, the razorback sucker has become extinct in the canyon, and another, the humpback chub, has dwindled to just a few thousand fish.

“We’re thinking the razorback never had very high numbers in the Grand Canyon,” Kubly said, and the population of the “primary fish of interest,” the humpback chub, has stabilized at abut 5,000 adults after a decline.

“We hope we’re turning the corner and getting some things right here,” said Kubly, chief of the adaptive management group of Reclamation’s Upper Colorado regional office in Salt Lake City.

The razorback and humpback, as well as the Colorado pikeminnow and bonytail chub, are the species targeted for recovery in the management of the Colorado River and its tributaries through Colorado, including the Grand Valley, and Utah.

Weisheit said the agency has ignored any mention of endangered species and archeology.

“Their attitude is that it’s more important to make electricity to pay for the cost of the dams” than to meet the requirements of the law, Weisheit said.

The agency, however, needs time to experiment, Kubly said.

Reclamation hopes to complete its process by the end of 2008, then begin an estimated 10-year experimental flow program