Report on Lower Colorado River Project

Report: United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, "Report on Lower Colorado River Project," Revised Draft, 6/7/63, page 49estimate assumes a crowding of the public into some fishing areas to a degree which might be considered intolerable today. If, however, even a fraction of the current rate of fishing in Arizona is to be achieved, such crowding will undoubtedly be necessary in future years. Even so, a deficit of 18,000,000 man-days will occur in the abovementioned 25,000,000 man-day demands. Conditions quite eimilar to the above also occur within the project area insofar as it extends into New Mexico, southern California, and other States contiguous to the Lower Colorado River Basin. Development of the proposed project with five major reseryoirs in Arizona, two smaller reservoirs in Utah, and one in New Mexico could help meet the public demand by providing opportunities for approximately 1,670,000 man-days of fishing. This estimate is based on assuned conditions of intensive fisheries management, optiman public access, and adequate control of conflicting uses such as water skiing and specdboating. Benefits to the project would be about $3,560,000 per year. Project development costs associated specifically with realizing these benefits may amount to a total of $7,000,000. If 60,000 acre-feet of project water were provided annually for fish and wildife management, as has been requested by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, 2,000,000 man-days of additional fishing could be provided therewith. This would result in additional benefits to the project of about $6,000,000 annually. Despite these efforts, however, the people of the project ares will be faced with a per capita rate of fishing which may be less than one-third of current participation. 29Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 3,850,111 byte