WSP10526

• File Number: 8210.110.60
• Description: Colorado River Water Users Association
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 12/6/1962
• Author: CRWUA
• Title: Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Annual Report

Thus far, you and we haven't done too b,adly, The Salt River Project in
Arizona was one of the first undertaken by th~ Bureau of Reclamation following
passage of the Reclamation Act of 190Z, and ~here are few who would dispute its
continuing importance in the growth of MaricQpa County. The same is. true of
the Yuma area and elsewhere on the lower CoJorado where early Reclamation
projects were constructed, The next big step was the construction of Hoover
Dam nearly 30 years ago to make the main stem of the Colorado more usable
through. control and regulation. Today, water stored in Lake Mead supplements
the needs of more than nine million residents: in the Pacific Southwest, and
downstream structures facilitate its diversion and use.

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.great patches of green stitched onto the tan counterpane, There in not enough
water of course, There wouldn't be, even.if the Salt River were the Mississip-
pi, the Rio Grande were the Congo, and the c1olorado were the Amazon."
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Thus he makes a good point, again, is do news to us. The growth of
the area served by the Colorado River is limited only by the water supply. And
while the Colorado is no Amazon, it can be stretched much farther than at pres-
ent and the water put to much more efficient use if we all join forces and work
together in the big job ahead.

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Upstream, the Upper Colorado River S~orage Project is rapidly taking
shape. Navajo Dam is completed and was dec;licated in September. We have
already topped out Flaming Gorge Dam and Glen Canyon Dam will be topped out
this summer. First water has been stored at Navajo and Flaming Gorge Dams,
and we anticipate that Glen Canyon Dam will be closed and the storage of water
started there within the next 45 to 60 days.

The first of the participating water use :projects in the Upper Basin, the
Paonia Project in Colorado, was turned over :to the water users for operation
on June I, and some water deliveries have b~en made on the Hammond Project
in New Mexico. The Vernal Unit of the Cent~alUtah Project and the Smith
Fork Project in western Colorado are also eS'sentially completed, and water
deliveries will start next spring.

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The Upper Colorado River Storage Project has a program of $lZ6 million
this fiscal year and we will have expended $413 million on the project by June
30, 1963, It is anticipated that funds for this: project will start tapering off as
the major expenditures for the big storage fa~ilities are completed although
work on the participating projects to enable t~e Upper Basin States to use their
allocated water will continue for many decades. The Upper Basin is moving
rapidly toward the use of its allocated share .pf Colorado River water.

Between the task of filling the Upper Basin storage reservoirs and the
placing in operation of water projects in the Upper Basin, the supply of water
that the Lower Basin has been able to draw upon from the Colorado River over
the years will of course be adjusted as provicled for in the Compact, This, of
course, was all anticipated in the signing of t~e Colorado River compact more
than 40 years' ago, but it has been a long timEj coming about.

Fortunately, we enter the critical periqd for the filling of Upper Basin
reservoirs in good shape. The melting snow of the high Rockies dumped 10,7
million acre-feet of water into Lake Mead during the runoff last spring, This
was 2,5 million acre-feet above average,