WSP04994

• File Number: 8221.110.J
• Description: Juniper-Cross Mountain Project
• State: CO
• Basin: Yampa/White
• Date: 7/6/1981
• Title: The Echo of Echo Park: The History of National Park Development and Water Resource Nondevelopment in Northwest Colorado
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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proposed rivers. Among them are the Juniper-Cross Mountain, Sheep-
horn and Oak Creek projects. The Park Service has asked that they
not be built. All three projects call for dams on the Yampa upstream
from the proposed wild river. They would alter streamflows and
adversely affect endangered fish species....Wild and Scenic River
designation prohibits dams and other developments that destroy a
free flowing river."*(13)

JANUARY, 1980--The Colorado River Water Conservation District submits
a license application for construction of Juniper-Cross Mountain
Project to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), successor
to the Federal Power Commission. (14)

SEPTEMBER 4, 1980--A petition to intervene in the Juniper-Cross
Mountain project before FERC is filed by a group of environmental
organizations. The petition states in part that "the damming of
the Yampa, one of the last major free flowing* tributaries to the
Colorado River, would represent a substantial loss and injury to
the Federation (National Wildlife) and to its membership." The
petition also states: "The Yampa River, and the Dinosaur.National
Monument through which the river flows, are of major concern to the
Federation (Colorado Wildlife) and its membership." The petition
includes the Colorado Open Space Council as having concerns similar
to the National Wildlife Federation and the American Wilderness
Alliance, which "feels that damming the Yampa would result in the
loss or impairment of educational, recreational, economic, scientific,
natural and aesthetic values important to its members and to the
public at large." The petition includes the Colorado White Water
Association and FERC allows intervention on September 30, 1980. (15)
Subsequently, Western River Guides Association petitions to inter-
vene and with the support of the original intervenors, it, too, is
given intervenor status by FERC.

Thus,'the battle lines are drawn ~gain. segments of the or-
ganized environmental movement 30 years ago actively pushed for
Cross Mountain Reservoir. Today, segments of the organized envi-
ronmental movement actively seek designation of the Cross Mountain
area as a Bureau of Land Management Wilderness Study Area and of the
Yampa River downstream of the project as a wild and Scenic River
while also actively opposing the Juniper-Cross Mountain Hydroelectric
Project.

There is a dream of water resource development in Northwest
Colorado that predates the find of the dinosaurs. Despite a series
of broken promises and the use of their own efforts on behalf of
Dinosaur National Monument as a weapon against them, local residents
have organized and raised money to make that dream a reality.

*There are four dams and 150 diversion structures on the main stem
of the Yampa River plus more than 110 dams with reservoir storage
on the tributaries of the Yampa. (16)

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