As Precious as Blood by Steven C. Schulte

Author:Steven C. Schulte
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60732-500-0
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: 2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

The CRSP and Echo Park

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At the beginning of 1953 and the start of the Republican presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Colorado River Storage Project remained bottled up by financial exigencies related to the ongoing Korean War and the continuing question over the inclusion of Echo Park Dam in the project. Eisenhower and the Republican Party had long criticized the costs of Democratic programs, including public power and natural resource programs. The high price tag of the CRSP (over $1 billion) had the potential to influence the president and his advisers to reexamine the project’s hefty cost. Maybe Echo Park could yet be preserved—if not by recognition of its sheer beauty, then because of its high cost. By late 1953, according to historian Mark Harvey, “much ground had been gained” in the conservationist campaign against dams in Dinosaur National Monument. Outgoing secretary of the interior Oscar Chapman had reversed course on the dams in the monument; President Eisenhower had indicated that he did not favor expensive river basin projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and CRSP. Finally, in 1953 the Sierra Club and other conservation groups had started an energetic national campaign to crusade against the hated dams.30

Heading into the 1954 congressional hearings, Colorado’s CRSP hopes were threatened on two fronts: by the emergence of the national environmental movement’s opposition to the CRSP and by Colorado’s lack of unity over its participation in the project. National and state controversies over the CRSP erupted as committees in both houses of Congress held hearings on several legislative versions.

Both supporters and opponents of the CRSP had opportunities to testify before the House Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation in January 1954. Both proponents and foes of Denver’s Blue River diversion also wanted their voices heard. While the Western Slope had complained of being outvoted by Denver in December and January CWCB meetings, Aspinall’s strength on the Interior Committee became evident in the testimony allowed to be presented before the subcommittee. A veritable brigade of Western Slope witnesses appeared before the House of Representatives in support of western Colorado’s water program. Western Slope residents Frank Delaney, Judge Dan Hughes, George Cory, Clifford Jex, L. R. Kuiper, George Pughe, and Frank Merriell all appeared. The Eastern Slope was limited to two witnesses: the Upper Colorado River Commission’s Jean S. Breitenstein and the Denver Water Board’s Glenn Saunders. A perusal of witnesses who appeared indicated that the Western Slope provided the most for this round of CRSP hearings, a clear demonstration of Congressman Aspinall’s growing influence in national water politics.31

Two days before the Washington hearings began, the Upper Colorado River Commission held an unusual but much-needed meeting in Washington, DC, to act on the CWCB’s recommendation to include Denver’s diversion request in the CRSP bill. Congressman Aspinall served clear notice that he would not support the CWCB’s endorsement of the diversion. According to a Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reporter present, after he spoke against the Blue River plan, “deep silence” greeted the congressman’s remarks. With

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