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<br />. <br /> <br />------. <br /> <br />BRIEFING MEMO <br /> <br /> <br />TO: Staff of members from CRSP states <br /> <br /> <br />FROM: Staff of Representative Wayne Owens <br /> <br /> <br />RE: Establishing a colorado River conservation Fund in <br /> <br /> <br />connection with reauthorization o~ the ~SP <br /> <br />The Colorado River storage Project (CRSP) is arguably tne <br />exotic of our country's desert reclamation projects. While its <br />w~ter and power benetits are lauded as the answer to our region's <br />future economic and population growth, we are only beginning to <br />realize the cose of remodeling nature on thLs ~cale. <br />In addition to the OQvious scars or construction, dams and <br />diversionary facilities will have inundated and de9raded 800 <br />miles of streams. Two hundred thousand acres of Wetlands, <br />hundredS of mile. o! rLch riparian oorridors, and vast areas of <br />oritical big game rangelands will have been totally lost. A <br />detailed $ummary or the presently identified environmental <br />damage. is a~tached. <br />In the year and a hal! that r have worked to develop a <br />completion plan for this project, I have yet to find a oredible <br />scientist who believes we fully understand and have adequately <br />planned for the envLronmental consequenoes ot the CRSP's <br />d.v.lopm.n~a. <br />When I be9an examining the Central Utah Project (Utah's <br />principal CRSP unit), I immediately discovered that environmental <br />mitiqation efforts to date have been woefully inadequate. Out of <br />the $1.2 billion spent on project developments, less than $10 <br />