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Page 4 TIlE DURA:\'GO (COLO,) HERALD Thursday, August 31, 1972 The Dolores Project Tour: I I DOVE CREEK - EI Rio de Dolores, "The River of Sor. rows," was what the scholarly priest explorer Escalante called it, Somehow, as it runs through the li\'es of men, the significance of that name has never been lost. It was in 1776 that the Spaniard Escalante came through this region of five rivers and named the Dolores, His reasons for the sorrowful title are the stuff of many legends. Today the sorrow rising from the waters of the Dolores are real. The water is invaluable. Without it towns will die and local economies be moved to ruin. People have put the essence of their lives into the soil of the high plateaus in the belief that someday the water would come. It hasn't. Others '~ho have used the water in its natural state or through ir- rigation and domestic water development in the past depend on it as much as those who have never had it. There are new voices entering the discussion of the fate of the waters of the Dolores. They belong to those, local and from (araway, who do not need the water to live but need it to sustain their spiritual existence. They simply love the wa- ters of the Dolores and the series of cathedral canyons and simple valleys through which they flow. They are defenders of beauty who ask to be heard. It was a gloomy, overcast day last Saturday when we gathered In the courtroom of the Dolores County courthouse here in Dove Creek to begin an Informational tour of the area which would be affected by the proposed Dolores River Project, In the room was an unlikely group composed o( an ur- ban, urbane Frank Evans, Congressman from Pueblo, weath- ered bean farmers from Dove Creek, Cahone, Pleasant View and other dry land farm communities, Montezuma and Do- lores County and town officials, water men from throughout the San Juan Basin and officials of the BUreau of Reclama. tion, , .And environmentalists from DUrango, Grand Junc- tion and the Front Range megalopolis. Various members of the news media were there as well, The important people were all introduced. We left in buses and a caravan of cars (or the spot on the Dolores River from which Dove Creek takes its municipal water, Tbe 1,100 foot drop from the flat plateau on which Dove Creek sits surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of .....ithering beans into the Dolores River Canyon is precipitous and challenging. At the end of the road was a picnic lunch, On the bumpy road down we passed a sign welcoming us to the picnic and warning white water boaters not to bring their boats unless they brought water. It was a sarcastic ref- erence to those who seek to stop the Dolores River Project in order to preserve the white water boating qualities of the river during the spring runoff. Sue O'Brien, coordinator of the Dolores Wild River Com- mittee and an avid white water boater wbo has gone down the raling, spring Dolores eight times in a flims)' raft, told why she opposed the project. The Dolores Rh'er, she said, is the only river in Colorado whfch qualifies for designation un, der the Wild Rivers Act, The dam below Dolores .....ould dis, qualify the river,leaving Colorado ""ithout a wild river. She was also a critic of published figures shOwing eco- nomic benefits of the project and argued that cost of the project Car exceeded its benefits to the people of the area, the state and the nation. She said cost figures were based on outdated estimates and interest rates. Ms. O'Brien talked of the beauty of the canyon into which (Continued on Page S) !I.'ASCY COX of Cabon.. llstem grimly.. th.. etr..cts of this year's drought on tb.. bun harvest are told, The fi..ld In which the group listened bt"longs to the Cons, 8..bind h..r Is uwls )fatis, Durango nath'e and school teacher, who Is conc..rned about th.. "Dvlron. mental and social effects of the proposed project.