THE COLORADO RIVER FROM ITS SOURCES TO THE SEA

A PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY DRAINED BY THE RIVER WITH EMPHASIS ON THE GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK'S UNIQUE SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS AND ITS MAJESTIC SCENERY Over the span of almost a century the Colorado River and its phenomenal and, in places, awe-inspiring and unique features, as they have been discovered from time to time, have evoked many published articles and much controversy. More particularly have they produced in recent times a spate of beautifully written articles based upon the doubtful hypothesis that any dam, anywhere on the river between Glen Canyon and Hoover Dam (or the head of Lake Mead), would damage the majestic and indescribably beautiful sculpturing which has been molded by the forces of nature, and would mar, if not completely destroy, the scientific wonders and breathtaking grandeur which the Grand Canyon National Park reveals to the eye of the general public and to the careful analysis of the scientist.

At the very beginning of this article it should be noted, categorically, that the author, who knows the river and who has followed its course from the sea to the area above Glen Canyon, would be the first one to sound the clarion call to arms should anyone or any institution attempt to modify, alter, obscure, damage or in any manner mar any portion of the area situated within the Grand Canyon National Park and parts of the Grand Canyon National Monument.

Most of the written articles have implied that the entire river, or at least the length of the river from Glen Canyon to Hoover Dam, is similar in almost every respect. This has created confusion in the public mind and has frequently encouraged a debate which has often been acrimonious and passionate.

A careful and objective examination of the long stretch of the river suggests that it should be divided into five different segments of its attenuated and often tumultuous pre-dam journey To the sea. Each of the five segments differs from every other segment. A treatment and discussion of the river within the context of the five different divisions of its varied and sometimes violent passage to the Gulf of California should go far toward clarifying the issues and toward erasing the confusion at least among those who have no ulterior motive to serve and no hidden purpose to advance.

The first segment, which is an interesting, lovely and occasionally spectacular part of the Colorado watershed, commences at the many high sources of the river, including the Green, the San Juan, the Gunnison and many other tributaries. This upper portion of the river extends far to the south to a point approxi mately coinciding with the headwaters of Lake Powell in south central Utah. This watershed area spreads over parts of the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and, to a much lesser extent, New Mexico. It is an area which generates most of the water of the great river. In it are many lovely valleys, secluded, glens high up in the mountains, trout streams, perennial snow capped peaks, gloriously attractive camping sites and occasional precipitous canyons that have their counterparts elsewhere in the crust of the earth within the continental United States.

Expressed in geological time, the region generally exposes the more recent and younger layers of the earth's surface. In some spots the drainage area has been punctured by the phenomena of volcanism, folding and faulting with accompanying displacement of the layers of the rocks that envelop the earth. On the high reaches of the river, which rise in places to more than 14,000 feet, there is ordinarily in the wintertime a heavy snowpack. This wide expanse of snow melts under the warmth of the spring and early summer sun and rains. The resulting runoff couverts the river into a roaring torrent and a rapidly moving, mighty mass of rebellious waters that flow on their majestic way into the southern stretches of the river's course. Until Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams were built, the Colorade ruled over the area with an iron hand. It brooked no interference with its path. It tolerated no obstruction to its riotous journey to the sea.

The second stretch of the river commences in the north from a point approximating the junction of the Green and the Colorado to a point on its course where Glen Canyon Dam backs up its waters to form the fabulously beautiful Lake Powell. The whole area is clothed by nature with a magnificence and gran deur of its own. The river winds generally through shales and sedimentary rocks, leaving the more recent and resistant parts of the yellow and pink and red sandstone formations separated from the river, often by long mesas. Here the river's rebellious waters have gouged a narrow and sheer gorge out of the older and harder rock formations. The extensive and generally bar ren mesas are studded with sage and other higher altitude desert shrubs. In places where the pink and maroon sediments have been most resistant to the sculpturing forces of wind and water, the long and gently rising slopes and plateaus, punctuated with sage and similar flora, extend to towering steeples not unlike Mont St. Michel. In places, the distant vertical yellow and vermillion cliffs have been eroded so as to form great windows, gothic arches, fantastic natural bridges and almost every con ceivable form and imagery known to man. Often the more resistant formations have been bi-sected by tributary waters into great canyons that wind their way back into the surrounding multi-colored sandstones and other sediments.

Those who have seen this expanse, like the author, both before and after the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, almost unanimously believe that its beauties have been immeasurably enhanced by damning the waters of the river to form Lake Powell. That the lake is 180 miles long and has a shoreline of more than 1,800 miles is a measure of the serrated nature of the lake's borders and of the long, attenuated canyons which wind back from the main body of the lake. Many of the barren, unattractive slopes, extending as they formerly did from the river to the base of the sandstone cliffs and the isolated sandstone spires, have now been covered up with transparent water in which the ever-changing colors and shades of the cliffs are accurately and beautifully reflected. Into the many steeply carved canyons the water, now uncontaminated by silt, extends in readily accessible, though tortuous and narrow, waterways between the vermillion and red walls of the sandstone which rise in many imaginable concoidal and other strange configurations above one's head until there can barely be seen, far above, a minuscular strip of the blue panse of the heavens.

Hundreds of thousands of people each year can now see the magnificence of this area by cruising along the shores of the lake; whereas, before the dam was built and the lake was formed, only a scant hundred or more each year had the wherewithal or the fortitude to face the trials and tribulations of a long, arduous camping trip across a desolate landscape, and thus to penetrate into a veritable maze of canyons, plateaus, steep escarpments and needle-like pinnacles in Navajoland. This stretch of the river holds many glorious and spectacular vistas which must and do strike with awe everyone who sees them. It is perhaps true that some of the hieroglyphics on the walls of the sandstones and a few walled habitations of old cliff dwellers of unknown age have been submerged by the rising waters of the lake. But, on balance, the knowledge which voyages on the lake has brought annually to hundreds of thou sands of people of the forces of nature, of the grandeur of the area, and of its many remaining visible scientific features compensates for the infinitesimally small loss of the artifacts which are to be found, exposed and observable, in other parts of the Southwest. They are not, therefore, lost to the inquiring traveler or to the interested archeologist or anthropologist. The third section of the river commences at Glen Canyon and extends to the mouth of the Little Colorado, about twentytwo miles below the Marble Canyon damsite. It terminates about 57 miles downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam itself and is all above the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park. Here the river has been stripped of its turbulence; its waters are generally clear and, except for a few rapids, are comparatively tranquil. Only when the there is an infrequently large runoff from other tribuztaries like the Paria is the river quasi-unregulated. But even when these occasional tributary floods occur they are easily absorbed by the waters of the mainstream. Glen Canyon Dam on the upper end and Hoover Dam on the lower restrain and control a river that once was a riotous, turbulent and uncontrolled body of moving water, churning and grinding its way to its resting place in the Gulf of California.

Throughout this section of the river, the gorge with its precipitous banks has been ground out of the older (but not the oldest) formations, measured in terms of geological time. The rim of the gorge is a flat plateau of Permian age, extending for many miles eastward to the Echo Cliffs and many miles west ward to what are known as the Vermillion Cliffs. Except as the right of access to the gorge may be impeded -- a condition which can well and must be remedied a dam at the Marble Canyon site, situated well downstream from the beautiful area of Lake Powell and well upstream from the Grand Canyon National Park, will add little, if any, regulatory control to those already existing. Nor will it inundate any scientifically attractive features where none of any note now exist or, if they do exist at all, are duplicated in other parts of the Southwest.

This area, or the third segment of the river, has no special or unique beauty and no peculiar scientific features that are not reproduced elsewhere. It presents little, if any, legitimate claim upon the conservationist and no demand for preservation.

Just as Glen Canyon Dam has made the whole Lake Powell region far more beautiful than it was before the dam was built, so a dam at Marble Canyon, while damaging nothing of scientific significance, may make what attractions it does contain more available than they have ever been before. Many thousands of visitors may want to take advantage each year of a new lake on which they may travel by boat, enjoy fishing and see more clearly the almost perpendicular walls of the gorge.

The fourth section of the Colorado commences at a point on the river where the Little Colorado River enters the mainstream and extends to a point where it intercepts the western boundary of the Grand Canyon National Monument some 130 to 135 miles downstream. From one end almost to the other end of this stretch the real majesty of the river is exposed to view. Lieutenant J. C. Ives in 1857 was the first American in the annals of our country to explore what is now the floor of the Grand Canyon National Park. His geologist, Dr. John Strong Newberry, saw what no scientist had ever seen before. His descriptions of the massive, eroded plateau of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah, as well as the titanic, exposed gorges of the Grand Canyon National Park, are among the most important works ever done about the geological features of the western part of our country. It wasn't until 1869 that Major John Wesley Powell and others in his expedition completed the first perilous descent of the river by boat and described the canyon as they saw it. One of the most beautiful articles on the river within the boundaries of the GrandCanyon National Park has been written by Mr. John Bird in the Saturday Evening Post of August 12, 1967. There are other publications of the Grand Canyon Natural History Association which, in greater detail, illuminate the geological and other phenomena, which make this segment of the river one of the wonders of the world.¹

Adequately to describe this portion of the river is beyond the talents of any human pen. Many have attempted it but none has quite succeeded in catching its changing majestic beauty, its varied colored formations, its towering temples and pyramids, its deep and continuously shifting shadows, its many moods, and its spell of mystery, which the erosive forces of wind and water, by folding, faulting and volcanism have created.

The geological maps referred to in the preceding footnote show how this stretch of the river, and especially the portion that lies within the Grand Canyon National Park itself, exposes, as no other segment of the crust of the earth exposes, the various geological periods that bridge almost two billion years, or half the life span of the earth. They make man realize how microscopic a figure he cuts in the matrix of time.

To damage this part of the river or any portion of it that extends from the northern rim to the southern periphery of the Grand Canyon National Park and from the junction of the Little Colorado with the mainstream to a point east of the western boundary of the National Monument would be to commit an unforgivable crime against the majestically beautiful and gloriously sculptured rocks of the earth's surface by the irresistible might that nature has generated over a long stretch of geologic time.

It might perhaps be relevant at this point to mention one of the geological conundrums that has, over the course of the last sixty years, puzzled and bedeviled scientists and geologists. They have, until only a few years ago, been unable to develop any hypothesis which satisfactorily explains the perplexing geological differences between the Colorado upstream from the Little Colorado, on the one hand, and the extraordinary, twobillion year old cross-section of the world's surface that is stripped naked for all to see between the Little Colorado and the Toroweap Valley, far to the west.At last, in 1964, a relatively satisfactory explanatory hypothesis was conceived by a group of twenty-one geologists who came together in Flagstaff. There they explained what before was unexplainable.

The explanation is not a complicated one. It suggests that in Cenozoic times and before there were two river systems or two lines of drainage. The one, which was called the Ancestral Upper Colorado River, flowed in a southerly direction until it reached a point approximating its present junction with the Little Colorado. Here it turned in a southeasterly direction and flowed into Lake Bidahochi and thence into New Mexico. The other drainage area was called the Hualapai and had its sources in what is known as the Kaibab Plateau, or Uplift. It was this great dome that raised almost the whole series of known rocks above the level of the Colorado and that separated the one system from the other. As the Hualapai drainage area, flowing westward, cut ever eastward into the uplifted earth's surface, it finally reached the Ancestral Upper Colorado, captured and imprisoned its waters and provided for them their present outlet through those layers of the earth's surface that extend from themost ancient known rocks of the Archean Period to the Quaternary. There are, of course, a few nonconformities which are explainable by the almost complete erosion of the Mesozoic strata and by the Pre-Paleozoic folding and tilting of the most ancient rocks of the earth's crust.

It was this diversion of the Colorado into its present course that exposed to the human eye the most extraordinary actual visual picture of the earth's surface that can be found in the world.

There is a geological map which shows the various formations through which the Colorado has ground its way from the point at which the Hualapai drainage captured its flow of waters and gave them, as it were, an escape in a northwesterly direction, thence southward to the sea. This stretch of the river, extending from approximately the junction of the Little Colorado with the mainstream to Prospect Creek (near the western boundary of the National Monument) is the stretch of which Theodore Roosevelt said: "Leave it as it is. We cannot improve upon it. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it."

The fifth section commences from the point where the western boundaries of the National Monument intersect the river. It includes Lake Mead and the southerly march of the river to the Gulf of California. Just as it cannot be denied that the recreation area of Lake Mead adds to the pleasures of thousands of families, so it can be asserted that whatever of scientific interest lies in this stretch of the river is duplicated in numerous parts of the world and more spectacularly within the Grand Canyon National Park and National Monument themselves.

The final part of the fifth section of the river commences where the waters are discharged from Lake Mead. Here there is a magnificent canyon of striking beauty which is a continuation of the Hoover damsite. But so there must be in almost all locations which are susceptible to the construction of great dams. From this point to the sea, excepting for fascinating recreational areas in the vicinity of Lake Mohave, Lake Havasu and sanctuaries for wildlife, the river plows its uninteresting way through very pedestrian and even in places grim and uninviting desert environments. There are small areas along the banks of the river which can be irrigated. Some are within Indian reservations; some are being irrigated by the white man. Close to the boundaries of Arizona, Mexico and California there are located diversionary works for the All-American Canal, which feeds water into the Imperial and Coachella Valleys in California and the Yuma area in Arizona. Farther up the river at a point above Parker Dam there are diversionary works, a large canal and pumping plants which carry substantial amounts of water across the great desert of southern California, lift the water over the coastal range of mountains and plunge it down onto the Pacific littoral adjacent to Los Angeles and San Diego.

Part II THE HISTORY OF THE COLORADO RIVER CONTROVERSY

The Colorado River rises high up in the Rockies, flows for over 1,300 miles into the Gulf of California, and drains an area of approximately 242,000 square miles.

Throughout the history of the Colorado at least that portion of its history which is confined to its present course the river during flood season has been a raging torrent. The runoff of the river has fluctuated violently within each year, and from one year to another. The floods created by the melting winter snows in the high Rockies and the other higher elevations in the drainage areas, combined with the runoff caused by precipitation and the "monsoon" rains during the spring and summer, made the Colorado a fickle, unreliable source of water to satisfy the ever-increasing draught on a diminishing supply.

Bridge Canyon Damsite on Lower Colorado River

As the Imperial Valley developed, demand for water for irrigation purposes from the Colorado increased. As the population in the Lower Basin states grew, the need for water to satisfy not only the agricultural requirements but the industrial and domestic uses, mounted steadily. In all of the states or the parts of states, excepting California and even to a degree in California what is known as the law of priority of appropriation (quite a different concept from the law of riparian rights) governed the acquisition of rights to the use of water. This law was generally common to all of those portions of the states within the two basins, barring California but even in the southern part of that state it was recognized as a basis for claiming the usufruct of water. In 1922 in the case of Wyoming v. Colorado the Supreme Court held that the doctrine of priority of appropriation must be given interstate effect. Therefore, excepting for parts of California, the doctrine of prior appropriation, or "first in time, first in right," became applicable among the seven states of the Colorado Basin or system and within each of the seven states.

Accordingly, as the demands for water continued to expand more and more in California and the population of California grew at a phenomenal rate, the Upper Basin states became more and more agitated lest, because of California's greater abilities and more powerful political influence, she would apply to beneficial use thus acquiring prior rights to the use of - the waters of the Colorado before the Upper Basin states could similarly acquire rights to those waters of the river which they felt equitably should belong to them. Arizona at a slightly later date also became very apprehensive.

After the Wyoming v. Colorado case, the fears of the Upper Basin states became greatly aggravated. Delph Carpenter, who was the Colorado River Commissioner for the state of Colorado, epitomized the situation in the following language: "The upper states have but one alternative, that of using every means to retard development in the lower states until the uses within the upper states have reached their maximum. The states may avoid this unfortunate situation by determining their respective rights by interstate compact before further development in either state, thus permitting freedom of development in the lower states without injury to future growth in the upper."

As a result of these apprehensions and fears which were certainly not without solid foundation, the Congress, on August 19, 1921, pursuant to what is known as the "Compact Clause" of the United States Constitution, authorized the seven states of the Colorado River basin "to negotiate and enter into a compact for the equitable division and apportionment of the water supply of the Colorado River." The then-Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, was appointed as a special representative of the United States government to participate in the negotiations regarding this important matter. Each state designated its own representative to negotiate the terms of the interstate "agreement" or "compact."

The states were unable to agree on an equitable allocation of the waters to each one separately. Accordingly, Secretary Hoover intervened with a compromise, under the provisions of which 7.5 million acre feet of water a year were appropriated to each of the basins, with the qualification that the Upper Basin States would not cause the river to be depleted below an aggregate delivery to the Lower Basin of 75 million acre feet in any period of ten consecutive years. The point of division between the two basins was Lee Ferry, close to the ArizonaUtah boundary and one mile below the mouth of the Paria River.

The entire drainage area was divided by the Colorado River Compact into two basins: the Upper Basin consisted of the southwestern part of Wyoming, the western part of Colorado, the eastern half of Utah, a small portion of northwestern New Mexico and a small wedge in northeastern Arizona. The Lower Basin included a slim strip of western New Mexico along the Arizona boundary, all of Arizona excepting for the headwaters of the Yaqui River and a small portion in the northwestern part of the state, a narrow strip of southeastern Nevada, the southwestern corner of Utah, comprising the Virgin and Muddy River basins and a very thin slice of the most southeasterly part of California. California has no tributaries; she contributes no water whatsoever to the mainstream of the Colorado. It was generally understood and later affirmed that the allocation to the Lower Basin states excluded the waters of the Gila River.

On November 24, 1922, the Colorado River Compact, which apportioned waters to the two basins and which contained certain other provisions, was successfully concluded by the representatives of the seven states. It remained, however, for the legislature of each state and for the Congress to ratify.

GENERAL LOCATION MAP THE ARIZONA WATER AND POWER PLAN

"At the very beginning . . . it should be noted, categorically, that the author, who knows the river and who has followed its course from the sea to the area above Glen Canyon, would be the first one to sound the clarion call to arms should anyone or any institution attempt to modify, alter, obscure, damage or in any manner mar any portion of the area situated within the Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon National Monument . . ."

It came before the Sixth Arizona Legislature in 1923, and, excepting for the position taken by Governor Hunt and a few of the members of that Legislature, the general sentiment initially favored ratification of the Compact. When, however, it became apparent that the Compact did not allocate waters to the state of Arizona but merely to the Lower Basin states collectively, that is to say, California, Nevada and Arizona, and when it became further apparent that California's abilities and political powers were so much greater than Arizona's as leverage for a federal project, or alternatively as the basis for a state-financed project, Arizona's apprehension in the State Legislature became prevalent and widespread.

It is not necessary to review the legislative history of the Compact in the Sixth Arizona Legislature. It is sufficient at this point to note that under the leadership of several members of the Senate and of the House the Compact was not ratified. To many members of the Legislature it became evident that revenue from hydro-power generated on the Colorado was one of the essential ingredients to the economic application of Colorado River mainstream waters to beneficial use within the state of Arizona, excepting for a small acreage around Yuma, the Imperial Valley, Coachella Valley and areas adjacent to the mainstream of the Colorado River Valley below Topock. This applied with equal force to the application of waters of the Colorado on the coastal plains of California. The necessary hydro-electric power revenue was later provided when the Boulder Canyon project was constructed. The revenues thus derived from hydro-power were to be used and have been used to amortize over a period of fifty years most of the cost of the Hoover Dam, without which the Metropolitan Water District would not be able to apply to beneficial use on the littoral of California the waters of the Colorado.

Several bills were introduced in the Congress authorising the construction of projects on the Colorado for the benefit of California. Finally, the Boulder Canyon Project Act passed the House on December 21, 1928. The preamble was a Congressional declaration of its purposes: (1) to control the flood waters, (2) to improve navigation (although the river had not been navigable in the ordinary sense of the word for many years, and then only with many interruptions between Yuma and Ehrenberg), (3) to provide water for irrigation and other purposes, and (4) to generate electrical energy to make the project self-supporting. Thus, by Congressional dicta, control over the Colorado was firmly vested in the Federal Government and several of its agencies. This is why Arizona must obtain a license" for a dam on the Colorado and why the Secretary of the Interior granted to Arizona a contract for the use of 2,800,000 ac feet of water. In the Senate the bill was modified to limit California's use of the waters of the Colorado to 4.4 million acre feet It apportioned to Nevada 300,000 acre feet, and to Arizona 2.8 million acre feet in addition to the exclusive use of the waters of the Gila River. It also allocated to Arizona and California, respectively, one-half of any waters in excess of the fifteen million acre feet that were apportioned to the two Basins. The legislation further required California by legislative action to agree to the limitation of 4-4 million acre feet of water from the mainstream before the provisions of the Act for the construction of the Hoover Dam at Boulder Canyon and the All-American Canal were to become effective. This requirement was promptly satisfied by the state of California, and the Boulder Canyon Project Act became effective by Presidential Proclamation on June 25, 1929. Under the Act, the Secretary of the Interior "purporting to act under the authority of the Project Act, made contracts with various water users in California for 5,362,000 acre foot; with Nevada for 300,000 acre feet; and with Arizona for 2,800,000 acre feet of water from that stored at Lake Mead.

It is not known why the Secretary of the Interior entered into contracts for the delivery of amounts of water which were greatly in excess of the 4.4 million acre feet of water to which California by her own Act had limited her right and which were allocated to her under the terms of the Boulder Canyon Project Act. But, at any rate, some 900,000 acre feet of water more than was apportioned to California as a matter of law and right were contracted for delivery to users in California by the Secretary of the Interior. It is assumed that California would be required to relinquish all title to this 900,000 acre feet if any development on the Colorado were undertaken. which would enable Arizona to apply to beneficial use the 2.8 million acre feet apportioned to her. This explains why California among other reasons has been continuously so hostile to any developments on the river which would be of benefit to the state of Arizona. Although the Compact had become effective in wrong among six of the seven states of the whole Basin and was binding in respect of the apportionment of water to California, Arizona did not ratify the Compact until 1943. This did not, however, dispose of the conflicting claims for waters among the three Lower Basin states.

In view of the absence of any apportionment of waters among the Lower Basin states, except for the terms of the Boulder Canyon Project Act and the self-imposed limitation: by California, Arizona brought suit in 1952 against the State of California and seven of its public agencies. This complaint was filed, pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, in the Supreme Court. Later the states of Nevada, New Mexico and Utah were joined as parties to the complaint.

After the Supreme Court had held preliminary pleadings, the case was referred to George L. Haight, Esquire, and, upon his death in 1955, to Simon H. Rifkind. Esquire, as Special Master "to take evidence, find facts, state conclusions of law, and recommend a decree," subject, of course, to final approval or modification by the Court. More than 340 witnesses were heard; the testimony taken spanned several years. The Special Master finally reported his findings, conclusions, and recommended decree on January 16, 1961.

With some exceptions the Supreme Court approved the Special Master's conclusions and issued its preliminary opinion on June 3, 1963, which, after having been referred to the parties in interest, was affirmed by Decree on March 9, 1964.

The effect of the Supreme Court's decree was to apportion to California 4.4 million acre feet of water from the mainstream for beneficial use within that state, 2.8 million acre feet of water to the state of Arizona, 300,000 acre feet of water to the state of Nevada. The court excluded the waters of the Gila from the mainstream of the Colorado. The then perfected rights to the use of waters were to be satisfied out of the apportionments made effective by the Court's decree."

But the Supreme Court decision did not bring the controversy to an end. It merely transferred the struggle to the Halls of Congress.

For many years bills were introduced authorizing the Central Arizona Project as a Federal undertaking. It was to consist of Hualapai (Bridge Canyon) Dam combined with diversion facilities on the Colorado near Parker and a canal with the necessary pumping plants to lift the waters over the topographical impediments to the flow of water from the elevations of the mainstream Into the Central Arizona alluvial plains. There it was to be used for irrigation, domestic, and industrial purposes. With each passing year the Colorado River water became more and more necessary. The population was growing at a fantastic rate while the underground water supply was being continuously depleted.

But each year for one reason or another federal legislation failed to be enacted, despite the perennial optimistic statements made by the Arizona Congressional Delegation. Always Arizona would obtain her relief "mañana." But "mañana" never came.

Various proposals were offered. One contemplated the construction of a basin account into which revenues generated by a high dam at Hualapai and another at the Marble Canyon damsite by hydro-electric power were to flow and from which sums were to be withdrawn from time to time for the benefit of the Central Arizona and other projects. One of the proposals looked to a diversion of waters from the Columbia River in the northwest into the Colorado River Basin in the southwest in order to supplement the available supply furnished by the Colorado. This proposal was received with little enthusiasm among the Congressional delegations of the northwestera states.

But none of these proposals received the sanction of both Houses of the Congress. Meanwhile, the Arizona Power Authority, with the support, at first, of a somewhat divided Interstate Stream Commission, had developed a plan which contemplated one important difference from the Bureau's project. Instead of a high dam at the Hualapai (Bridge) site, the Arizona Power Authority plan provided for only a low dam, i.e., some 256 feet lower than the Bureau's proposed dam. Great emphasis should be given to this important difference, because, while the Bureau's dam would back up waters well into the Grand Canyon National Park, the Arizona Plan would inundate not an inch of either the Grand Canyon National Monument or the Grand Canyon National Park. Nor would the Arizona Plan flood any phenomena of geological significance or any of the beautiful and unique exposures of the crust of the earth. Yet the low Hualapai (Bridge) Dam would generate about as much net revenue as the high Hualapai (Bridge) Dam which was planned by the Bureau of Reclamation..

Suddenly, in 1964, after the Supreme Court decision and apportioned to Arizona 2.8 million acre feet of water from the mainstream of the river, and just as the Federal Power Commission, within whose jurisdiction the matter came, was on the verge of issuing and had actually prepared a license for the Arizona Power Authority to proceed at Marble Canyon, Senator Hayden introduced legislation in the United States Senate which imposed a moratorium on the emission of licenses for any dam between Hoover and Glen Canyon by the Federal Power Commission for a period of five years. This moratorium applied to all of the Colorado River within the boundaries of Arizona. The Arizona members of the House quickly endorsed the substance of the moratorium but shortened the period to two years. Presumably Senator Hayden was promised sufficient support for the Central Arizona Canal as a consideration for the moratorium. But the support, if it was promised, was never delivered.

Meanwhile, at and during each session of Congress, the people of Arizona were told that legislation authorizing the Central Arizona Project would be enacted shortly. But each year it was the same old story, "todo el tiempo mañana (always tomorrow).

Several bills were introduced but none passed both houses. All contained some fatal infirmity for Arizona. Either they gave California a guarantee of 4.4 million acre feet of water or imposed what is tantamount to a perpetual moratorium on the issuance of licenses to Arizona by the Federal Power Commission, or both.

While the matter was being debated in the Congress, the conservationists applied themselves assiduously to the dissemination of many confusing and quite deceptive articles about the damage that would be done to the glories of the Grand Canyon National Park and National Monument by the construction of a dam at the Marble Canyon site or by a low dam at the Hualapai site.

The almost complete absence of any damage that would be done to the magnificence of the Grand Canyon National Perk and the National Monument or to their scientific phenomena by the construction of either a low dam at the Hualapai site or a dam at the Marble Canyon damsite or both has been dealt with in Part I of this article and need not be repeated.

To assert, as is being presently asserted, that the 4.4 mil lion acre foet of water guaranteed to California is unimportant because there will be no shortage of water until shout 1990 is to overlook several basic facts.

Whatever waters, if any, in addition to the waters that were apportioned to Arizona under the decision of the Supeana Court, may be developed by weather modification or the transportation into Hoover Dans of desalinized water from the coastal plains of California, will do no more than help (if they are economically effective at all) to satisfy the growing defiHaving in mind the fact that the guarantee of 4.4 million scre feet of water annually to California must come off the sop of any waters available from the mainstream in the Louwer Ba