9337

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9337
• Author: Colorado River Water Users Association.
• Title: The Colorado River of Many Returns.
• USFW Year: 2001.
• USFW - Doc Type: Coachella, California.
• Copyright Material: NO

UTAH
magine the paradox.
When Mormon pioneers caught their first glimpse of the Salt Lake
Valley in 1847 and leader Brigham Young exclaimed, "This is the
place," one of the first landmarks these weary travelers saw on the
western horizon was a vast body of water.
As these hearty travelers
poured into the valley from
the eastern mountains, there was
water, water everywhere, yet not
all was fit to drink.
The pioneers quickly
discovered that the expansive body
of water on the western horizon
that Brigham Young characterized
as "undoubtedly a godsend," was
the remnants of the prehistoric,
Lake Michigan-sized Lake
Bonneville - known today as
the Great Salt Lake.

T

But imagine the paradox.
These indomitable settlers were emerging from snow-capped summits
and clear mountain streams to spy a body of water, as Brigham Young
put it, "large enough to water a population of people and farms the size
of the entire territory." Alas, Brigham was not yet familiar with the
Great Salt Lake.
Yes, salt water. An inland sea. A vast expanse of salinity.
Tens of thousands of acre-feet of water. But virtually useless for
irrigating crops, washing clothes, drinking or otherwise sustaining life.
What Utah's trail-blazing pioneers discovered and what
water-resource managers have known for more than a century is this:
Utah is a desert and the second-most arid state in America (only
Nevada is drier).
But fortunately for Utah, a river runs through it.
The vast Colorado River and its tributaries have cut deep
valleys through the Colorado plateau in eastern Utah and at the same
time cut a deep niche in Utah's water history. In Utah, the Colorado
River Basin includes the Green, White, Uintah, Price, San Rafael,
Dirty Devil, Fremont and Escalante rivers.
In the western stretches of Utah, the Great Basin region
encompasses several deep river basins separated by mountain ranges.
The Bear, Sevier, Jordan and Weber rivers are the main sources of
surface water here, with drainage flowing to the Great Salt Lake, Sevier
Lake and Utah Lake.
Since the average annual rainfall in Utah is 16 inches,
ranging from six inches in the Uintah Basin and San Rafael Desert to
more than 40 inches in the Uinta Mountains and Wasatch Plateau,
water managers came to the realization during the state's infant history
that its future depended on capturing and storing spring runoff from
the mountains and transporting it to the heavily populated Wasatch
Front, a 70-mile-long, mountain-hugging slope of landscape that runs
from Ogden on the north to Provo on the south, with Salt Lake City
in the center.
In modern times, transforming the desert into an oasis of
agriculture and a center of commerce supporting the burgeoning
population of the Wasatch Front has meant careful management of
rivers, streams and lakes. It has inspired the construction of dams,
dikes, reservoirs and lakes to store the precious water resources that
flow from the mountains for use during dry summers in the desert. And
it has caused the desert to "blossom like a rose," as the pioneer leader
Brigham Young had predicted upon his arrival.
Utah began formulating a water plan in the early 1900s when
State Engineer A.F. Doremus and U.S. Senators Thomas Kearns and
RESEARCHER STUDIES FISH HABITAT OF THE GREEN RIVER IN NORTHEAST UTAH
IN ONGOING EFFORTS TO PROTECT ENDANGERED FISH.
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