4100

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 4100
• Author: Gibert, S.
• Title: Water Policy and Development of the Colorado River.
• USFW Year: 1973.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

Valley. Once in the valley 300 feet below sea level, the river
had no place at go, so the Salton Sea was formed. (See map.)
Panic ensuedl Farmers, railroads and engineers teamed up
in an effort to control the river. Finally after two years,
the mouth of the canal was sealed off with tons and tons of
rock, and the river burst through the sandbars into its old
channel. One again the Colorado flowed to the Gulf 'of Mexico.
This fiasco cost more than 37 ~illion in railroad expenses
and damages to farmers in the Imperial Valley and Mexico. It
also s2rvedto point out dramactically two of the problems,
silt-load and flooding, of the lower Colorado basin. The Imper-
ial Valley, however, w~s not through fighting for the waters
of the Color~ldo.

Birth of the Bureau

At about the same time, Arizon~ too, was growi~g and devel-
oping irrigated farmlands along tributaries of the Colorado.
Floods along the Salt and Gila Rivers in 1900 raised concern
in Arizona for a permanent water supply for the growing city
of Phoenix and the surrounding agricultural lands. It was
then that Phoenix started its investigation for a dam site to
provide agricultural and industrial water, power, and flood
control. A site was found 300 miles El.','L3,Y on tb.e Salt River and
plans were laid for a dam and accompanying canals that would
cost as much as $5 million. Then Arizona took its project to
Congress.

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