Colorado River Project: River Report Summer 2003

• Description: Colorado River Project: River Report Summer 2003 Getting to know the great unknown
• State: CO
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 6/16/2003
• Author: Newcom, Joshua
• Title: Colorado River Project: River Report Summer 2003
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

11
OLORAP
fY=, 1 jEt1` x
REPO
A project of the Water Education Foundation
FEATURE ARTICLE
GETTING TO KNOW THE GREAT UNKNOWN -
A Personal Look at White Water Boating on the
Colorado River By S. Joshua Newcom
"We are three - quarters ofa mile in the
depths of the earth, and the great river
shrinks into insignificance, as it dashes its
angry waves against the walls and cliffs,
that rise to the world above; they are but
puny ripples and we butpygmies, running
up and down the sands, or lost among the
boulders... We are now ready to start our
way on down the Great Unknown. "
—J. W. Powell, August 1869.
4.
One might think there is nothing
unknown about the Colorado River;
after all, this is the Information Age. The
Internet gives us access to countless
reams of information, and thousands of
reports are made for our disposal by
numerous agencies and businesses. It
seems as though every aspect of the river
has been covered to some degree,
sometimes written about 100 times over.
All of the "laws" that have redefined how
we see the river, all of the physical
alterations that have reshaped it, and all
of the interests competing continuously
for the water flowing in its channel are
elements that help to move the Colorado
into the abstract. The river is easily
adapted into a language filled with legal
jargon, laundry lists of do's and don'ts,
formulas and numbers and, in general,
an overwhelming sense of over- manage-
ment. With this gargantuan quantity of
information, it's oftentimes easy to lose
sight of what the Colorado River is: a
river.
I am as guilty of the above as any. For
the past six years I have spent my time
huddled in an office with an ever -
increasing mound of paper, all describ-
ing a plethora of aspects of the Colo-
rado. I must confess I have contributed
to this seemingly insurmountable pile of
information. One thing is for certain: as
that mountain of information has
grown, the Colorado River has become a
Continued on page 4
- -4F .,,W- .,.-,. - —