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2 WATER AND CHOICE IN THE COLORADO BASIN seemed redundant to some, for in 1962 a statement of federal water policies, standards, and procedures had called for full consideration of alternative solu- tions of water problems (U.S. Senate, 1962). In response to the perceptive stimulation of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on National Water Resources (1961), a system of state centers for water-resources research, and a national water-planning agency-the Water Resources Council-have been established. The present Committee feels, however, that the alternatives approach to water management has been honored more fully in principle than in practice and that no large river basin or metropolitan area has yet demonstrated planning that brings to bear the full available.range of scientific methods of analysis and action. As a means of illustrating the general propositions of its first report, the Committee here reviews the history of water development and planning in the Colorado River basin in order to bring out the several aims of that devel- opment, to point to alternative ways of achieving those aims, and to suggest research efforts needed in support of planning and management. Although the alternatives discussed are, in detail, peculiar to the Colorado basin, the basic scientific problems of this basin have counterparts in basins throughout the United States and elsewhere in the world, and the general method of considering a number of choices and constraints is applicable to all basins. The Colorado illustrates the range of public and private aims and the variety of ways and means possible to achieve those aims in a single river basin. Many alternatives are possible. From a purely statistical standpoint they are overwhelming in number. The Committee has chosen here to em- phasize those facets of water management that are both well illustrated in the Colorado basin and are general in application rather than unique to the Colorado. A review of opportunities in handling the Colorado indicates that some have not been explored thoroughly because of political, legal, institu- tional, and attitudinal constraints, * and that such constraints, which delimit most water planning, may not be immutable. The Colorado basin is closer than most other basins in the United States to utilizing the last drop of available water for man's needs. National debate over two Colorado basin water projects has been unprecedented, and legal and institutional commitments, as well as the overriding physical limitations, may already have hardened to the point that discussion of certain alternatives at this time may seem quixotic or gratuitously critical of past decisions, or both. No such criticism is intended. The Committee's intent in selecting this particular basin for analysis is to show by concrete example that there may *In this report constraint is not used in the sense of unreasonable limit, but only as an existing restraint on the range of choice. i ~ I