The Colorado River Study

Document: Department of the Interior Information Sheet, "Paper By Floyd E. Dominy, Commissioner of Reclamation, Department of the Interior, for Delivery at the American Water Works Association Conference in Detroit, Michigan, June 7, 1961," June 7, 1961, page 5with a shore line of almost 2,000 miles, will be the fourth highest dam in the world, and second in height in the United States only to Hoover Dam. Lake Powell formed by Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam will be the two largest man-made lakes in the western hemisphere. The eleven authorized participating projects are planned to provide water for more than 114,000 acres of presently dry land and to provide supplemental water to about 233,000 acres presently irrigated. In a number of instances the projects will also provide water for municipal, industrial, and other purposes. Construction has been commenced on three of the participating projects and preconsturction activities are proceeding on the others. Municipal and industrial water requirements in the sparsely settled Upper Colorado River Basin have thus far been nominal, Significant new requirements are developing, however, mainly because of the basin's vast mineral resources. In the upper basin, an area about the size of Arizona, are one-third of the Nation's reserves of coal, the world's largest known reserves of oil shale, and great bodies of uranium, potash, petroleum, phosphate, trona, natural gas, oil and other minerals. Utilization of these minerals is attracting many people to the area. The population of the four States of the Upper Basin--Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming--increased almost one-third in the 1950-60 decade compared to an average increase of 19 percent in the Nation as a whole. The effect of mineral resource development on a basin community is illustrated in the case of Farmington, New Mexico, which grew to more than 20,000 people in 1960 from less than 4,000 in 1950 as a result of gas and oil developments in the "four corners" area where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have a common meeting point. Also, in the past decade the population of Moab, Utah, almost trebled as a result of uranium discoveries in its vicinity. This community will experience further expension as an outgrowth of a $30,000,000 potash development currently under way in its environs. Here, too, the Bureau of Reclamation has made a preliminary investigation of means of providing additional water when it becomes needed. The Denver firm of Cameron and Jones, Inc., consulting engineers, prepared a report for the State of Colorado on "Water Requirements for Oil Shale, 1960-75." Here are some of the conclusions reported: by 1975 shale oil production in the vicinity of Rifle, Colorado, will reach 1,250,000 barrels per day; diversion requirements for water for municipal and industrial purposes in this 30-mile stretch of the Colorado River between Rifle and De Beque will increase by more than 200,000 acre-feet by 1975. 5Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 2,190,713 byte