Scope of Lower Colorado River Basin Plan

Document: Attachment 1, Scope of Lower Colorado River Basin Plan, March 1965, page 16In all of recorded history, only 900 persons have made the hazardous, water-borne trip through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. To make such a trip requires an adventurous spirit, physical stamina, time, and money. Construction of Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon Dams would open the spectacular canyon areas to access by literally millions of people at nominal cost. Scenery is a rather ephemeral thing if no one ever sees it. With very little adverse effect on natural beauty, Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon Units comprise the financial key to solution of the water supply problems of the Pacific Southwest. They would be the important revenue producers to financially assist the development of the urgently needed new water supplies. The Colorado River system is vast. There is ample room for both Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon Dams and the reservation of hundreds of miles of virgin areas of unparalleled scenic beauty. The legislation authorizing the Grand Canyon National Park in 1919 anticipated the possibility that a dam such as Bridge Canyon might one day be built which would in a small degree include storage in the park itself. It was Carl Hayden, then in the House of Repres entatives, who caused such a provision to be included in the authorizing act. 16Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 1,747,753 byte