WSP00506

• File Number: 8282.500.20.A
• Description: Colorado River Operations
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 7/3/1961
• Author: Raymond Hill
• Title: Limitations on Upper Basin Developments Due to Shortage of Colorado River Supply
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

LEEDS, HILL AND JEWETT. INC.

The Upper Colorado River Basin may have been late
in exploration, slow in settlement, and limited in
development, but the Upper Basin boldly faces a new
future which will see its many resources utilized on
an ever-widening scale.

The future of the Upper Colorado River Basin lies in
its resources. The most important resource is water
water which is corralled and put to work rather than
allowed to plunge wildly toward the sea, wasting its
energy in the rapids of the colorful canyons.

The Upper Colorado River Basin has the water -- it
has land to be irrigated - - it has canyons with dam
sites where much water can be stored and where hydro-
electric power can be produced -- it has petroleum,
coal, and natural gas - - it has oil shales and rare
hydro-carbons - - it has mineral resources of uranium
and other atomic ores, of many strategic metals, of
phosphate and other needed nonmetallic ores.

But, these many resources are largely dormant
sleeping giants yet to be awakened. The future will
see the use of Upper Basin resources on an ever-
widening scale under a development program which
will bring together the resources of water, power,
land, and minerals ...

The future begins to unfold for the Upper Colorado
River Basin.

INHERENT CONFLICT

.!~~~alifornials existing uses are in no danger of curtailment

under the apportionment formula recommended by the Special Master

to the Supreme Court of the United States, the burden of the inevitable

shortage of water supply will fall on the Upper Basin States.

Arizona and Nevada would be free to develop and use much more

water from the mainstream of Colorado River than they could use

beneficially on existing projects supplied from that source. Hence, to

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