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Show 158 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER ation is most controversial and debatable among quali- fied engineers. In the second place, evaporation data for the areas involved in this particular situation are so meager as to be highly questionable. And, in the third place, the Department of the Interior has just about talked itself out of its own argument. When Under- secretary Tudor was originally testifying, he objected to the so-called high Glen Canyon Dam as an alternative to Echo Park and Split Mountain Dams because, he said, high Glen Canyon would mean a loss of 165,000 acre-feet of water. Then, in March of this year, he corrected the 165,000 figure to 70,000 acre-feet - still a lot of water. And finally - or finally, so far as we now know - he again corrected the figure. This time he said that the alternative to Echo Park Dam would evaporate only 25,000 more acre-feet. "Obviously, if the Bureau of Reclamation, in pre- paring testimony for a congressional hearing on a major project, first says 165,000, then 70,000 and next 25,000 we can only conclude that the evaporation factor is truly unreliable. As an excuse for building dams in the monument, and for threatening the laws and traditions which protect the entire park system, evaporation may turn out to be only a sad illusion." Rumors spread that the Senate authors of S. 1555 would make an attempt to clamp it to the general flood control bill then pending. The rumors proved to be without foundation, but that the move had been con- sidered was disclosed by Senator Edward J. Thye during the debate on the flood control legislation. Waving a handful of telegrams, he told the Senate they had come from conservation organizations and they urged him to block any attempt to railroad the crsp through dis- |