WSP05306

• File Number: 8200.700
• Description: Colorado River
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 1/1/3000
• Author: Getches and Meyers
• Title: The River of Controversy - Persistent Issues
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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have sULvived and natural forage ~as long ago depleted. ~targinal areas have

been nourished by irrigation, sustained through dry seasons by water stored

behind darns and moved hundreds of miles through canals, over mountains, and

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across state lines.

1he Colorado River epitomizes the way in which the new West has met the

old. The meeting has been far from congenial, but the most visible disputes

have not simply pitted old West agricultural interests against new West indus-

trial'and municipal interests. The battles more often have been among states

with various and changing mixes of both interests. Yet the same states have

made tentative alliances with their adversaries to pursue cornmon advantages

from water projects only the federal government could aford to build.

The voices of Indian tribes have been raised in the fight over the river,

insisting that their needs not be overlooked. As descendants of the aborig-

inal sovereigns of the entire territory, the tribes claim formidable legal

rights for the vestiges of their domain. The exercise of Indian rights could

severely limit growth of non-Indian uses. that possibility may tempt Congress

to exercise its superior political authority to curb Indian rights, a prospect

complicated by concerns for justice and national honor.

In recent years, as the river's native elegance has become scarcer, zeal

for its total exploitation has tempered. Citizen's groups have become increas-

ingly vocal, insisting that some of the West's natural amenities be saved from

subjugation to human enterprise. The enchantment of the early explorers has

been rekindled in those who insist that some of the river belongs to wildlife

and that stretches must be preserved so that unborn generations can have

glimpses of what enthralled John Wesley Powell in his epic 1~69 scientific
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exploration-turned-adventu.e.

Of the speculations that may ~e made about the Colorado River's future,

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