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dealing with Western issues, including water, public lands, national parks, Indian affairs, and mining. In six years, Aspinall's decision to remain on Interior proved wise; by 1955, he chaired the House Interior Subcom- mittee on Reclamation and Irrigation. From 1959 to 1973, he chaired the entire Interior Committee, placing him in a position to influence and shape every piece of legislation vital to his state and region.' In many ways, the most significant piece of legislation crafted by Aspinall was the 1956 Colorado River Stor- age Project. This landmark legislation was a by- product of many influences, including the long pent -up dreams of the Upper Colorado Basin states for significant recla- mation development. Of course, it was only made pos- sible by the Colorado River Compact, which allowed the Upper Basin the luxury of affording to wait until it was politically ready to begin a large reclamation program. What had happened by the 1950s to make this possible? And what new events would threaten the Upper Basin's dreams of an ample water supply for its future? World War II had started a population rush to the entire West, but most certainly into the Upper Colorado River Basin in particular.' World War II and the early Cold War era also inspired an incredible burst of economic activity to the West. Regions like Colorado's Front Range and Western Slope, Utah's Wasatch Front, and New Mexico's Albuquerque and Los Alamos areas were transformed by the needs of the nation's defense programs, military bases, advanced technology, and the fevered search for raw materials like uranium. As the region's economy boomed, political leaders be- gan asking the nervous question: did the region have enough water to meet the growing population's urban, industrial, and agricultural needs? A finite, and seem- ingly dwindling water supply could cast a pall over the post -World War II era's boom -born optimism. In- creased water storage would emerge as the top priority for political action. The Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP), a long- studied program for Upper Basin water development, would be shaped and reshaped to meet the region's water needs. While this is the context for the Colorado River Storage Project (which became law in 1956), the actual legisla- tion faced a series of new challenges that foreshadowed the difficulties the federal reclamation program would have in the decades ahead. From the 1930s to the early 1950s the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corp of Engineers was busy constructing not only the larg- est series of dams in world history, but also the great- est number of them in a short period of time. The New Deal era had made the Bureau of Reclamation an extremely powerful federal agency. It became a capital development "machine," a virtual free - wheeling job cre- ation agency at a time when signs of economic progress were welcomed by all Americans.10 By the early 1950s, however, a new series of challenges began to pose a potential threat to federal reclamation's progress. The problem began not with the overall concept of a compre- hensive Upper Basin Reclamation Program but where some of the dams would be located. Two of them were slated in early drafts of the legislation for the largely unknown canyons of Dinosaur National Monument, at Split Mountain and Echo Park, on the Colorado -Utah border. It would soon be revealed that the Bureau of Reclama- tion had plans to build dams and flood other scenic wonders, which led to a revival of some of the spirit and emotion of the great Progressive era conservation war over the flooding of Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley. If the federal government was going to flood Dinosaur, what other scenic wonders will be threatened, conservationists asked? A national campaign evolved with dozens of conservation orga- nizations writing tens of thousands of letters against the CRSP with the scenery- destroying dams on NPS lands. By 1956, a compromise had been worked out, still allowing for a massive CRSP bill, but without the hated dams at Split Mountain and Echo Park. Much of the Upper Basin's reclamation infrastructure would be constructed in CRSP's wake: Navajo Dam, Flaming Gorge, Glen Canyon Dam, and the Curecanti Unit, to name only the most prominent structures." The post -World War II conservation movement had come close to threatening the entire project. Congress- man Wayne Aspinall, who had chaired the House Irriga- tion and Reclamation Subcommittee during the Echo Park and Colorado River Storage Project fight had expe- rienced first -hand the power of the emerging conserva- tion movement. While he did not admire that power, he understood the West was in a minority position politically and that a new era had dawned in reclama- tion politics. Water projects would never sail through to Congressional authorization again without close public scrutiny. Henceforth, reclamation projects would be forced to deal and bargain with a new political force, that of the conservation movement reborn and energized as the emerging environmental movement. Wayne M _.._. _ ..... . . ......................w .._..._..._..............w ._.__.....w .. _........