Upper Colorado River Basin Project and Echo Park Dam--Correspondence, 1946-1956

File — Box: 10

Identifier: VII

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

These letters are evidence of efforts to get the Upper Colorado River Basin Project approved by Congress. The Project incorporated a series of dams on the Green and Colorado rivers to provide irrigation waters which would allow reclamation of then worthless lands. The controversy between the group favoring the dams for power and irrigation and those opposing the dams on ecological grounds centered on Echo Park Dam. This dam was to be built within the bounds of Dinosaur National Monument.

G. Ernest Untermann corresponded frequently with John Geoffrey Will, secretary of the Upper Colorado River Basin Commission; George Dewey Clyde, Utah State Commissioner of Interstate Streams; and Frederick P. Champ, president of Cache Valley Banking Company. Many of Untermann's letters set forth the problem as he saw it from geological and paleontological views. Untermann, Will, Clyde, and Champ, all of whom favored the project, circulated letters and information among themselves and anyone else they thought might be persuaded to help their cause. There are letters to and from Utah's Senators Arthur B. Watkins and Wallace F. Bennett, and Representatives Reva Beck Bosone, William A. Dawson, and Walter Granger, all of whom backed the project. Letters were also written to LeRoy Johnson, representative, California; Ken Regan, representative, Texas; John P. Saylor, representative, Pennsylvania; and Hubert H. Humphrey, senator, Minnesota; who had voiced adverse opinions.

John E. Doerr and Devereaux Butcher, both of the National Park Service, and Oscar L. Chapman, Secretary of the Interior, opposed the project on the grounds that it was an invasion of the National Monument and therefore a dangerous precedent.

Correspondence to, from, and about the Sierra Club and other wilderness groups is less cordial than other letters. Although there are not many letters from these groups, the few in the collection and references to such groups give a clearer, if slanted, idea of this side of the issue. It was the view of the group working for Echo Park Dam that the Sierra Club and other wilderness clubs were seeking only to save the water of the Colorado River system for southern California, where many of them had their headquarters.

Men in the United States Bureau of Reclamation--John R. Riter, E. O. Larson, and R. D. Goodrich--favored the project, as did Harold E. Thomas, a hydrologist with the U. S. Geological Survey, and Arthur L. Crawford of the Utah Geological Survey.

Letters from these prominent individuals and groups, along with correspondence from Utah's clubs and general population, combined with the unfavorable correspondence, give an interesting view of behind-the-scenes work on both sides of the issue.

Dates

1946-1956

Language of Materials

From the Collection: Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.