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more Zi~ater for the intermotcntain west Aright future lies just around the corner for irrigation farmers in the intermountain West. And once that corner is turned in 1962, new projects will be completed and bring mere water to more farmers as the '~ years roll by. All this is passible because of the program authorized in 1956 for d,evelop~aent of the waters of the IIpper Colorado Diver and its tributaries, a project that reaches into Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Col- orado and Wyoming.. Eleven Federal Reclamation projects -called "participating projects"-- were authorized by the Congress in 1956 as part of the vast billion- dollar Coloraela River Storage ptro jest. Three of these eleven projects will store and deliver water to farmers in 1962, and construction is underwa3r on three others. Preconstruction (advance) planning investigations are now in various stages of completion for three other projects authorized in 1956. Legislation has been introduced in the Congress for authorization of three additional participating projects, and feasibility reports are near completion for another three projects. {Suam~aty information on these 15 projects is given at the end of this article.) And, final, planning studies are being pushed ahead on still other proposed P~j The great storage-unit dams of the Colorado River Storage project, such as Glen Canyon in Arizona, have captured the attention of the gen- eral public in the years since the 1956 authoriza- tion of the Upper Basin program. 'T'hey have been called the keys to the program, and they are, with their ability to regulate the flows of the Colorado River and its main tributaries and to produce power revenues to finance a major part of the vast undertaking. But not to be' overlooked is the fact that the der .ro t. ~~at~r~se beef-Q +~ reset from the Upper Basin program_ will take place on the participating erects where water will be ut to beneficial, consumptive uses on a lame- scale. Of major sig- nificance to the people of the Upper Basin States. are the long-recognized direct benefits from ex- panded irrigation agriculture and from the sup- plies of water for municipal and industrial use that the participating projects will make possible. The presently authorized projects •~ill provide full water supplies for 114,000 acres of new land, and supplemental water for 232,000 acres of pres- ently irrigated land which is short of water nearly every year. The siz projects for which feasibility reports are completed or nearly completed will serve an additional 400,000 acres of new and sup- plementallands. The other projects now under active investiga- lion, or earmarked for early study, could add an- other 300,000 acres of land in participating proj- ects. Thus, a total of more than 1,000,004 acres will be included in Upper Basin participating projects in future years. The sum of the direct benefits to be gained over the years as these par- ticipating projects come into being: heralds a bright future.- r„ no~riv all cases hecp orojert~ h ve not been built in the ast because the direct beneficiaries- t_he irrigation farmers--could not repay in full the reimbursable costs of those protects in 40 years as re aired under Federal Reclamation law. Now, hon ever under the basinwide program, net power revennPS from th storage unit pa~cern ants ~v_ill_ ~ry,+~;l;~Pd to aGais in and to assure full reps= m~^+ of reimbursable costs. Also, the river regu- lation provided by the huge storage unit reservoirs will assure conformance to the 1922 Colorado River Compact and thereby will make possible the increased consumptive water use on the more than 1,000,000 acres to be benefitted by the Upper Basin participating projects. The direct and indirect benefits from the ex- panded irrigation farm business looming for the Upper Basin States through the participating THE RECLAMATION ERA lQovember, 1961. -16~