WSP10687

• File Number: 8270.100
• Description: Colorado River Basin Water Quality/Salinity -- Misc Water Quality
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 1/1/1971
• Author: USDOI
• Title: Quality of Water - Colorado River Basin - Progress Report No. 5 - January 1971
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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PART 1. INTRODUCTION

A. Legislative Requirements for Report

This is the fifth progress report on Quality of Water in the Colo-
rado River Basin. The directive for preparing this and the four previ-
ous reports is contained in three separate public laws. Section 15 of
the authorizing legislation for the Colorado River Storage Project and
participating projects, Public Law 485, 84th Congress, Second Session,
April 11, 1956, state~ "The Secretary of the Interior is directed to
continue studies and make a report to the Congress and to the states of
the Colorado River Basin on the quality of water of the Colorado River."

A progress report to comply with Public Law 84-485 was in prepara-
tion when the authorizing legislation for the San Juan-Chama Project and
the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project (P.L. 87-483) became effective on
June 13, 1962. Section 15 of this act states, "The Secretary of the In-
terior is directed to continue his studies of the quality of water of
the Colorado River system, to appraise its suitability for municipal,
d::Jmestic, and industrial use and for irrigation in the various areas in
the United States in which it is used or proposed to be used, to esti-
mate the effect of additional developments involving its storage and
use (whether heretofore authorized or contemplated for authorization)
on the remaining water available for use in- the United States, to study
all possible means of improving the quality of such water and of allevi-
ating the ill effects of water of poor quality, and to report the results
of his studies and estimates to the Eighty-Seventh Congress and every
two years thereafter."

A few weeks later Public Law 590, 87th Congress, Second Session,
which authorized the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, was passed with a si~
ilar section pertaining to qQality of water reports. This public law,
h::Jwever, stipulated that January 3, 1963, would be the submission date
for the initial report ani that the reports should be submitted every
2 years thereafter.

B. Previous Reports

The January 1963 report prepared by the Department of the Interior
was comprised of two parts: (1) an assessment of the water quality sit-
uation in the P9.rt of the Colorado River Basin above Lee Ferry, Arizona,
as of 1957, prepared by the Geological Survey; and (2) a projection of
the water quality effects to be expected from additional developments
that involve storage and irrigation use of river waters above Lee Ferry
by the Bureau of Reclamation.

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