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Show HUNGRY HORSE PREDICTION 59 When it had taken office, the Eisenhower admin- istration had inherited a migraine headache - the controversy over the proposal to invade Dinosaur with power dams - and McKay had been given his orders. It was fully understood how greatly his predecessor, Chapman, had been pained by the Dinosaur problem. Chapman had been unable to find a cure for it, and the public hearings he had held on the matter had only increased the intensity of the affliction. Chapman had approved Echo Park Dam, but so great had been the pressure of its opponents that he had qualified his stand a bit. In his last month in office he had proposed that further study be given to possible alternate sites which would make it unnecessary to intrude upon the sanctity of Dinosaur. That was the situation when McKay sat down at Chapman's desk. He promptly assigned Under-secretary of the Interior Ralph Tudor, an engineer, to conduct a personal study of the Dinosaur question and submit a new report. That would provide the administration with its own ammunition with which it could defend the position it had already taken - the approval of Echo Park and Split Mountain dams.* both Echo Park and Split Mountain dams in Dinosaur National Monument. This was done in conformity with prearranged White House strategy. When the supplemental report went to the White House, not all the required comments of government bureaus and states had been received. McKay also sent it to Congress in this incomplete condition. Thus, under the law, McKay could not officially approve the crsp plan. This did not deter him. Hearings were soon to begin on the crsp in the House Interior Committee, and he wanted the plan before the committee even without his official endorsement on it. Not until the spring of 1954, long after hearings were held, were all the required comments received and Congress given an opportunity to consider them. * Split Mountain Dam may be forgotten. It was not included in the final recom- mendations of the Eisenhower administration. |