The American Nile

The American Nile Saga of the Colorado River

When they finally made up their minds, the Spaniards called it The Colorado River. They may have been color-blind, though, because Colorado means red and the river's brown. Sometimes, people nowadays call it "The American Nile." And, that's stretching a point, also. There are some similarities, of course, the Nile's brown, too; and there are also some dissimilarities, for example, the Colorado flows south; the Nile, north. But both rivers are mighty natural and economic forces, and therein lies the rationale for comparing them.

Although only one-third the length of the Nile, the Colorado is the dominant river system in the southwestern corner of the nation. The area it drains is one-twelfth of the continental United States, and draws its water from parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, California, and almost all of Arizona.

It begins its 1,700-mile run toward the sea from two sources the Green River, which rises in the Laramie Range in southeastern Wyoming, and the Colorado, which has its beginnings in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The two join in Utah to form the major river.

It's a young river if you're a geologist.

About 12 million years ago, they say, a small trickle of water began cutting a tiny channel into the top of an enormous plateau which had already been around for two billion years. Eventually, the trickle became a stream, then a river that reached the sea.

Today, a portion of the river's channel is the most spectacular of all erosions the Grand Canyon but its work isn't done because the land continues a slow rise that creates new wrinkles, new ranges, new mesas which eventually will succumb to the limitless patience of the Colorado.

If the Colorado River is 12 million years old, it spent the first 11,999,920 years of its life doing what it pleased. It flooded frequently but it didn't make much difference because nobody got hurt... because there wasn't anybody around.

How does the Nile River compare to all that?

The Nile is three times longer than the Colorado, and much of its power remains untapped. The Colorado has, in the opinion of many, been asked to do so much that it has been crippled.

Rising near the Equator and flowing north into the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile at 4,187 miles is the longest river in the world. It loses half its water to evaporation in the Sudd, a vast swamp in southern Sudan, but still manages to provide irrigation for 7.6 million acres in Egypt and another 2.8 million acres in Sudan.

Lake Victoria is its major source; the secondary contribution comes from the Ruvironza River in Burundi. The White Nile and the Blue Nile join at Khartoum to become simply, the Nile.

Shortly after beginning its journey to the sea, the Nile falls 120 feet at Murchison Falls, then passes through six more cataracts before reaching its destination. But in some areas, it flows so slowly that the water plants grow thick enough to support an elephant, and that vegetation robs the river of an estimated 800 billion cubic feet of water per year.

The Nile used to flood every year, as regular as spring; when the Aswan High Dam began operating in 1968, farmers could finally plan on staying where they were year around. However, there are good points and bad points about the dam. It ended the flooding, but it also formed Lake Nasser, which deprived the farmers of the silt which made the Nile Valley and the Nile Delta the most fertile land in the world. But the dam also gave the farmers hydroelectric power and irrigation. Whether or not it's a fair trade is still being debated. The early Egyptians called it Yer-o which meant "The Great River," but the Roman conquerers renamed it after their water god, Nilus, and the name stuck. text continued on page 7

(Right) Max Groom is the Bureau of Reclamation's head diver, and Hoover Dam, background, is one of his awesome under-water maintenance responsibilities. Alan Benoit (Bottom) A lettuce harvest gets underway on the Colorado River Indian Reservation. Jerry Jacka

Text continued from page 2 The Colorado River attracted its first inhabitants nearly 4,000 years ago, but they were primitive hunters and food-gatherers, not skilled enough to utilize the lifegiving power of the river.

Then the Spanish came.

Hernando de Alarcon, who captained a boat from the river's mouth at the Sea of Cortez to a point nearly 100 miles north, envisioned a possible shipping trade, but since he was actually looking for gold and couldn't find any, he gave up on any future projects. But he liked the river and named it El Rio de Buena Guia, the River of Good Guidance. Later in that year of 1540 a group led by Melchoir Diaz renamed it Rio del Tisori, River of the Firebrand. In 1604, it got another name when an expedition led by Juan de Onate labelled it Rio de Buena Esperanza, River of Good Hope. Finally, in 1701, Fray Eusebio Francisco Kino explored and drew extensive maps of the region and called the river which sliced through it "Colorado."

The Spanish abandoned the river because there was no gold there, and for the next 200 years it pursued the course it had always pursued.

But at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the river was invaded by a new breed, and it was tougher and more determined. They would tame the Colorado.

They were ranchers, farmers, and land developers who looked upon the Colorado as a natural resource whose lifegiving waters could make the desert flourish. They also sought treasure, but theirs was land, not gold.

And they had a new weapon - legislation.

After a few futile attempts at diverting the Colorado for irrigation, the settlers turned to their lawmakers for financial and legal support in their endeavors. It started with the Homestead Act of 1862. The Desert Land Act of 1877 was next, then the National Reclamation Act of 1902. By 1903, the Colorado's waters were being diverted into the Imperial Valley of California.

Other small intrusions made dents into the river, but did nothing to control the frequent rampages which sent all the irrigation projects back to "Go."

But the time had come.

The inevitable was at hand.

It began in 1904 when the Reclamation Service approved the Yuma Project, designed to deliver water to 65,000 acres in the Yuma Valley. That meant building the Laguna Dam, the first successful attempt to span the river with a man-made device. Others followed, almost rapidly. In 1911, they built Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River.

Although nearly 200 miles east of the Colorado River, it is significant: it was the first of many controls which would sap the great river of its violence. The Salt flows into the Gila and the Gila flows into the Colorado.

And up in Colorado, the Grand Valley Project on another major tributary the Gunnison took water through a six-mile tunnel to two irrigation projects.

The Imperial Dam near Yuma followed, to deliver water into the old Alamo Canal, which was replaced in 1942 with the All-American Canal.

Then, in 1928, the Boulder Canyon Dam was authorized. It would, its proponents argued in Congress, "save the lives of a half-dozen communities and the property of 100,000 people."

It would also, its detractors argued, signal the demise of the lower Colorado as a free spirit.

The proponents won, and on Nov. 12, 1932, trucks began dumping rocks into the river to raise its level so it would enter tunnels drilled into the walls on both the Arizona and Nevada sides of Black Canyon. They poured for 15 hours, and when they had finished, the course of the river was for-ever altered. Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) cost $10.4 million, used 3.2 million cubic yards of cement, three million board feet of lumber, 662 miles of copper tube, and killed 110 men. It was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Sept. 30, 1935.

Other dedications soon followed.

Parker Dam, started in 1934 by the Metropolitan Water District to divert water into California, almost caused a war before it was completed.

Arizona politicians, still smarting because they had opposed the handling of Boulder Dam, wouldn't let contractors work on the Arizona side when Parker Dam was started. The engineers ignored the restriction, however, so Gov. B. B. Moeur sent the militia to the site "to protect Arizona's rights."

The soldiers took along two old ferry boats, which were dubbed "battleships in Arizona's navy." The boats got tangled up in the construction cables, and the militia had to be rescued by the enemy.

But the dam was completed.

Davis Dam, finished in 1946, regulates delivery of water to Mexico. The Mexican government added the More-los Dam near Yuma in 1950; the Palo

text continued on page 10

In the Land of Plenty

From Parker to Yuma, along the Colorado River, is a 116-mile stretch of nearly limitless desert and wide blue sky. To the traveler looking for beautiful scenery it is a wasteland. But, thanks to Colorado River water and a hearty breed of farsighted pioneers and their offspring, this seemingly bleak desert land is today actually one of the largest desert farming areas in the Southwest, and one of the more profitable, too, reports Don Howell, a 14-year man with the Yuma County Extension Service. Here in a land where no one prays for rain (when it falls it can only mean crop damage) it's irrigation that pays the rent - irrigation, fertile soil, and an almost yearround growing season. Last year the county's farm till rang up a total of over $220 million worth of crops in irrigated areas. Major crops grown in this "land of plenty" are cotton, citrus, winter vegetables - at certain times of the year, the area provides head lettuce to the entire country. Other important Yuma County crops are cauliflower, cantaloupe and durham and red wheat. Durham, used for spaghetti products and the like, is now being contracted for $175 a ton, for growing next year.

Because of the plentiful water supply, alfalfa hay does better here than anywhere else," Howell points out. "Alfalfa takes an awful lot of water. The rule of thumb is one-acre foot of water to one ton of hay per acre."

The long growing season and relative freedom from summer storms and squalls also make Yuma County farms prominent producers of the world's supply of bermuda grass and other specialty seeds such as alfalfa, onion, carrot, and cucumber.

"But cotton is usually the number one crop," says Howell," or citrus. Acreage-wise alfalfa is probably number one."

A look at Yuma County's crop acreage for 1979 shows 66,000 acres in alfalfa, 110,000 acres in cotton, 29,000 in citrus, 53,000 acres in grains, and 29,000 in lettuce. At times, economic conditions may warrant a higher acreage of cotton, Howell says, or higher acreage in wheat. "One year we had over 100,000 acres in wheat. That points up one of the unique aspects of this area. We can take advantage of market peculiarities by alternating crops. Another plus is double cropping. Farmers can grow a crop of lettuce and a crop of wheat here in the same year, and sometimes three crops can be planted in a calendar year with two crops harvested.

"The future? It's fantastic," says Howell, "thanks to Colorado River water, farming versatility, and the kind of people that live and work here. There are a few problems with urbanization taking over some good farm areas. But we still have a few frontiers left, too."

Verde Diversion Dam followed in 1957 as a flood control device; and the headgate Rock Diversion Dam in the early 1960s diverted water onto the Colorado River Indian Reservation.

The Colorado River drains a region of 245,000 square miles. That's 157 million acres. But the average rainfall there is only 10 inches, and only one-eighth of that amount ever survives to contribute to the river. So most of the water comes from other rivers. From the Green River, the San Juan, Dolores, Escalante, Parin, Duchesne, Dirty Devil, White, Little Snake, Yampa, Gunnison, Roaring Fork, Gila, San Pedro, Salt, Verde, and the Little Colorado rivers.

Once, all flowed freely into the Colorado, as once the Colorado flowed freely into the Sea of Cortez.

Today, there are at least 26 dams on the Colorado River system.

But, as in Egypt, where the farmers lost their silt but gained valuable other resources, harnessing the Colorado has benefitted those who live by it and with it.

The tamed river has created a multibillion dollar tourist industry, and has turned the deserts into cities and farms. Lake Havasu City and Bullhead City both owe their origins to the now-placid waters of the Colorado.

Bullhead City sprang up in the mid40s when Davis Dam was being built. Ironically, the rock that resembled the bull's head, for which the community was named, is now covered by the waters of Lake Mohave, impounded by the dam.

Lake Havasu City originated in 1964 on 26 square miles of desert. Its builders relied heavily upon the appeal of Lake Havasu as a selling point. But just to make sure, they laid out more than $12 million to buy one of the London Bridges, transported it to the desert, and rebuilt it over a diverted channel of the Colorado. Parker was founded as a railroad town in 1908, but now looks to the river for as much as 80 percent of its total income, and irrigation waters have turned Yuma into a prime agricultural area, not a place to be remembered solely because the infamous Territorial Prison used to be there.

Tourism comes in many forms. The London Bridge proved to be a wise investment because it trails only the Grand Canyon in attracting tourists to Arizona. And there are boats running on the Colorado again, but they're not bringing inquisitive Spaniards into unknown territory. Most of them are there for pleasure pulling waterskiers or raising rooster tails.

Of course, some of them are working boats, too hauling fishermen to the churning waters at the base of Davis Dam where the world record (59 pounds, 12 ounces) striper was caught two years ago. Or hauling the folks to the gambling casinos of Laughlin, Nev.,. which is about 500 yards away from Bullhead City if you go by boat, but 15 miles if you go by car because you have to drive up and across the dam.

Damming the Colorado has also created three major hydroelectric plants on the lower side Boulder (Hoover) with a generating capacity of 1,344,800 kilowatts, Davis with 240,000, and Parker with 120,000.

Soon, the Central Arizona Project will carry Colorado water from Lake Havasu into the arid center of the state, and rumors persist that as many as 12 more dams are being planned for the system, although the federal government denies it.

Such heavy use and such projects make the words of T. H. Watkins seem important.

In his book, The Grand Colorado, Watkins observed that "after 70 years of dam-building, the Colorado is overcommitted a living river has been crippled."

But there are challenges to his words.

One, in a way the strongest, comes from 72-year-old Isom Whitney, who lives in the Los Angeles area but spends most of his time along the river in a camper and a pair of raggedy shorts and a T-shirt that says, "Just Because You're Not Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not Out to Get You."

"I been coming up here for 50 years," he said while draining a can of cold beer to ward off the ravages of the 110degree heat. "Wasn't nothing here then; river wouldn't let there be much of anything. What the hell good was it to us?"

And by the way, for those who like to compare the Colorado to the Nile, here are a couple more interesting statistics: In the past 45 centuries, the Nile has deepened its channel by about 24 feet. In the past 12 million years, the Colorado River has carved a gorge 6,000feet deep that brings people all the way from Tokyo to look at it.

That must mean something.

(Left) Del Webb's multi-million-dollar Nevada Club is located in Laughlin, Nevada. Just across the river from Bullhead City, Arizona, Laughlin boasts five casinos and a sixth is under construction. Ferry boats run, free of charge, back-and-forth across the river every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day.

(Below) Feeding popcorn to the fish turns out to be a main attraction for these small fry.

(Bottom) Lower Lake Mead's scenic wonders, which includes Hoover Dam, are seen best from the comfort of the tour boat Echo. Tours last over an hour and are conducted each day throughout the year. Photographs by Alan Benoit