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we are going to revisit the past; 150 years ago, the Department of the Interior was created. It was a different type of depart- ment formed in an era when development of the West and its natural resources - from minerals to water - was a primary goal. Our panel discussions will then explore how we got to where we are today: an era in which the traditional water development past has given way to a more collaborative approach that tries to protect the environment while stretching the available water supply. Finally, we will examine what the next 150 years may hold for the Department of the Interior, the states, the Republic of Mexico, the other interest groups such as Indian tribes and environmental organizations and the Colorado River itself. Before I introduce our first speaker I would like to recognize the organizations that provided financial support for this event. The major sponsors are: the Dames & Moore Group, Montgomery Watson and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's upper and lower Colorado River regions. Those who provided additional funding, our event sponsors, are Horton, Knox, Carter & Foote; Jones & Stokes As&ociates; Krieger & Stewart, Engineering Consultants; Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; and Southern Nevada Water Authority. Finally, three organizations generously agreed to sponsor our group photo: Robert Bein, William Frost & Associates; the Colorado River Indian Tribes and Navigant Consult- ing Inc., formerly Bookman-Edmonston Engineer- ing. We will take the group photo at 5 tomorrow afternoon after the last panel and each participant will receive a complimentary 8 by 10 print. The support of these groups has helped us to underwrite the cost of this symposium as well as the publications that will flow from this meeting. The November/December western water will feature coverage of this symposium and we are tape recording the entire event for production of another written proceedings which will be released sometime next year. Our first speaker is an adventurer and a visionary, a man who has played a major role in the Colorado River Basin, Major John Wesley Powell. Even before Major Powell's legendary journey down the Colorado River, he had made similar treks down the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois rivers. He had traversed portions of Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa Welcome f/hursdalf $eptemter 1~ 1999 RITA SCHMIDT SUDMAN, ExECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WATER EDUCATION FOUNDATION Welcome, or should I say welcome back? Many of you attended our first Colorado River stakeholder symposium, The 75th Anniversary Colorado River Compact Symposium, Using History to Understand Current water Problems, held in 1997 at The Bishop's Lodge in New Mexico. That symposium focused on the 75th anniversary of the 1922 Colo- rado River Compact, one of the most significant documents in the "Law of the River," the collection of laws that apportion and distribute the water and regulate the use and management of the Colorado River. As you know, the river is the lifeline of the Southwest, providing water to seven states, dozens of Indian tribes and the Republic of Mexico. That symposium was a milestone event attended by a distinguished group of historians, engineers and legal scholars, and leading representatives from the federal government, each of the basin states, the Republic of Mexico, Indian tribes and environmen- talists. The panel discussions were enlightening and enthralling as we examined the history of the Compact proceedings and the results of that historic document. The entire event was tape recorded and we published a 204-page proceedings designed to capture "the spirit" of those discussions held at The Bishop's Lodge. The Colorado River is a complex and controversial system shared by a multitude of stakeholders with different interests. For that reason, some were at first reluctant to meet at The Bishop's Lodge in 1997. We at the Water Education Foundation believe very strongly in our mission to provide impartial informa- tion about water issues to not only educate people, but lead to a resolution of water problems so, .... I persisted. And at the event many of you - including Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt - told me "This is great. You must do this again." So here we are in 1999 in Keystone, Colorado, for our second Colorado River Symposium, Managing the Colorado River: Past, Present and Future. To begin, SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 o