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

c

C1

C,;)

....'

Department of Interior, National Park Service, and dated August 9,
,C~ 1934. The letter directed to the Federal Power Commission and signed
,~~) by A. E. Demaray, acting director, noted consideration of expansion
of Dinosaur and sought consideration of release of power withdrawals
for improved park administration, but stated in part: "Such an area
would be established by Presidential proclamation which would ex~
empt all existing rights, and a power withdrawal is of course an
existing right."

The utah senator then noted that "it is important to remember
that language, because when we come to the proclamation by President
Roosevelt almost the identical language is used by him in exempting
existing rights in those lands from the administration of the Park
Service. II

Watkins then quoted at length from a letter written by the
Federal Power Commission chairman, Frank R. MCNinch,' dated December
13, 1934 replying to the Demaray inquiry: "This implied request for
a vacation of the power withdrawal has called for careful consider-
ation because of the magnitude of the power resources involved...
the Commission (Federal Power) believes that the public ,interest in
this major power resource is too great to permit its impairment by
voluntary relinquishment of two units in the center of the scheme.
The Commission will not object, however, to the creation of t~e monu-
ment if the proclamation contains a specific provision that power
development under the provisions of the Federal Water Power Act will
be permitted."

(:~T)

Senator Watkins stated: "this is exactly what Mr. Roosevelt
did in the proclamation in which he expanded the SO-acre tract to
more than 200,000 acres."

Watkins also called attention "to the fact that the 'two units
in the center of the scheme' were Echo Park and Blue Mountain Dam
sites.1I

Later in his speech, Watkins declared: "The water and power
withdrawals were there first. The Monument advocates knew that they
were there. They were perfectly willing to have the Monument expand-
ed, with the provision that they would be subject to the dominant
interest of water power and reclamation..." (17)

Appearing in the Congressional Record of July 17, 1954, (page
10270) was a deposition or affidavit dated March 27, 1950, and signed
by David H. Madsen, former manager of Dinosaur National Monument,
"setting out certain statements" made at meetings in Vernal, utah,
on June 11, 1936, and in Craig, Colo., on June 13, 1936:

"...Among my other duties I was acting superintendent of the
Dinosaur National Monument and in that capacity was ordered by the
National Park Service to arrange for hearings...for the purpose of
securing the approval of citizens of that area for the expansion of
the Dinosaur National Monument to include the canyon unit....

"Among other things discussed was the question of grazing and

-5-