When the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies (GCES) began in the early 1980's, it was only supposed to last a couple years. The purpose of it was to integrate operations of Glen Canyon Dam to be more compatible with downstream resources and users. Then phase 2 of the GCES started around the mid 1980's and that was only expected to last a few years. Then as more studies were conducted, more questions had to be answered, then more monitoring needed to be done, and more "nice to know but so what projects" were funded. The GCES snowballed into a monster that kept going and growing. Additional funding was needed, more people were hired, larger facilities were built, and the government got bigger and bigger. It was a democrats dream come true.
In August 2018, Trump tried to cut funding for the GCES and terminate it. Here is a link about it.
http://www.knau.org/post/jobs-research-risk-after-government-defunds-grand-canyon-programs
In September 2018, Congress passed legislation to fund it. Here is a link to that info.
https://azdailysun.com/news/congres...cle_9db81d95-2459-5f92-962f-3aa60db663f9.html
I think the only way some of these projects will stop is if funding stops. Biologists or other scientists are not going to support a decrease in funding because they would be out of a job. So projects are continued and what starts out as an experiment, becomes normal operating procedure.