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LJC? q<6q 1rAf `1l Ll ?42 - -W2,4r W_ . W?-t4- Chas REMARKS BY J. CRAIG POTTER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT AND PARKS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BEFORE DENVER, COLORADO, FEBRUARY 23, 1984 © o Q SECRETARY FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE THE COLORADO WATER CONGRESS, Thank you very much. I am privileged and very pleased to be here with you this morning. Some of you I know. Some of you I don't. I can tell those of you whom I don't know that I have a great deal in common with you. I am a Westerner. In fact, I lived and worked in Wyoming before I went to Washington. I worked in the U.S. Senate with Senator James McClure from Idaho and Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska, and I can assure you that if I didn't understand the problems in the Upper Colorado River Basin before working with those gentlemen, I certainly did understand them afterwards. Currently, I am the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, working with Ray Arnett, who is the Assistant Secretary, and whom I am sure many of you also know. My topic today is Balancing Natural Resource Needs with Development Deeds. The very first point I want to make is that we're deluding ourselves if we fail to recognize the feeling that many people have -- that there is an inevitable conflict coming between State water rights and Federal requirements, particularly those under the Endangered Species Act. There also seems to be pervasive feeling that the collision ts-going to occur right here in the Upper I think everyone in this room has the scenario in t e his mind that currently exists. We have biologists in one corner plotting to try to restore the humpback chub and the Colorado River squawfish and the bonytail chub to their historical range, probably in the entire Colorado River Basin all the way from Flaming Gorge to the Mexican Border. In the other corner, you have the developers and the water-users who are saving up all the dynamite they can get their hands on so that they can go out and destroy the last remaining habitat of whatever remnants of these "trash" fish they can find. This is an extreme description - but it is apt under the circumstances, and it's time we all rolled up our sleeves and did some- thing to impr me the environment s-a--that-we R i ??+ t e pro ems re resen re resented by the need for development in this part of the rountrv -- I'm not going to stand up here and pretend that w developmental needs to which I allude. You know mean to the future of this nation. You know that apace if we're going to meet the tremendous needs decade, and as we enter the 21st Century. We do sitting back and waiting. We must take action no free and prosperous nation as America approaches e are not aware of the what the Upper Basin can development must keep of America in the coming not have the luxury of w if we are to remain a and enters the new century. By the turn of the century, there will be some 40 to 45 million more Americans than there were in 1080 Tha means our couni;ry ?s going to grow ?n popu a ion a most as much in two decades as it did during its entire first century. Our labor force will increase by some 24 million. There will be more than twice as many American workers as at the end of World War II. We will need to build some 32 million new conventional housing units to provide for young people starting families and to replace deteriorating housing. That means we have to gear up to the rates of construction in the boom years of the 1960's and early 1970's.