WSP00256

• File Number: 8210.140.20
• Description: Colorado River Basin Organizations and Entities - Colorado River Basin States Forum - California
• State: CA
• Basin: Western Slope
• Date: 6/1/1969
• Author: Myron B Holburt
• Title: Californias Stake in the Colorado River
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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CALIFORNIA'S STAKE IN THE COLORADO RIVER

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Suppose the present Colorado River water supply
of Southern California were taken away entirely,
What would happen' Among other things. economic
depression; recession and stagnation of industry and
trade; forced evacuation of millions of people; and
reversion to desert of thousands of square miles of
presently watered farms, golf courses and parks, For
the Colorado now furnishes four-fifths of the water
that makes Southern California green and habitable.
prosperous and dynamic. This vast region of some
32,000 square miles, from Ventura to San Diego and
from the ocean to the eastern state line, is by nature
semi-arid to arid, Much of it inward from the coastal
mountains is a natural desert as barren and stark as
will be found anywhere on this globe, Yet in at least
one respect Southern California is like no other place
on earth. The economy that thrives here is surpassed
in fe,v other areas and is unequaled in any other area
of like aridity,

That this is so is a tribute [Q the imagination, daring
and industry of man, and is owed in large measure
to the existence of the Colorado River along the east-
ern bounds of the state, between California and Ari-
zona, Water from the Colorado supports hundreds of
thousands of acres of magnificent year-round agricul-

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ture in the deserts of Southern California and provides
municipal, domestic and industrial water for many
millions of people on the coastal plain, three hundred
miles from the river, About eighty percent of the
water now used in the South Coastal plain and the
Colorado Desert area of the state comes from the
Colorado,

Besides rhar. millions of people from the cities flock
to the Colorado each year for outdoor recreation-
fishing and hunting, boating, wa~er skiing, sightseeing
and camping,

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Whirring rurbogenerators on the river send an end-
less flow of electric energy to Southern California to
help keep factory and farm machines humming and
homes, schools and stores lighted.

For years to come, the Colorado River will continue
to be rhe largest single source of warer supply for
Southern California as a whole, even after completion
of the State \Vater Project now under construction
to bring Sierra Nevada water 444 miles through the
San Joaquin Valley and over the Tehachapi moun-
rains ro the Sourh Coastal plain, This northern water
added to present supplies is expected to take care of
our growth for perhaps the next generation, but as
growth continues, the time will come when still
greater quantities of water will be needed, from still
more distant sources. We cannot get more from the
natural supply of the Colorado River than we are
taking already. That stream is over-committed now,
and unless its flow is augmented by some means Cali.
fomia may even have to reduce her present use.

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