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Show 130 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER Upper Basin, declared Johnson, should visualize com- plete development of the whole basin, and not offer a piecemeal plan, such as S. 1555 did. No one expected all the projects to be built simultaneously, but if the last project in the plan was protected by law, then its rights would be reserved until it was built. Next Johnson proceeded to take a healthy swipe at the storage projects in S. 1555. He would, he said, be much more enthusiastic about the bill if it proposed to construct all the irrigation projects first, and afterward regulate the flow of the river with storage reservoirs as needed.144 The shivers which must have passed through Watkins and the Reclamation Bureau engineers at this statement could be understood. Johnson was a realist, and he was looking the crsp squarely in the eye. He saw it for what it was, and he saw what it would do, and he was not to be influenced in his thinking by any dreams based on nothing more than a consuming desire to build more projects, good, bad or indifferent. No one wanted projects in the Upper Basin more than he, but he wanted them to be good projects that would, in actuality, contribute to the sound development of the entire area. A cagey idea emerged from Johnson's thorough understanding of the Colorado River problems. It had to do with Glen Canyon Dam.145 Not only would it cost $421 million to build, but there would be a loss of mil- lions of acre-feet of water through evaporation from the 186-mile long reservoir behind the dam. Glen Canyon Dam, of course, would be invaluable to the Lower Basin, said Johnson. In fact, it would be so valuable to the Lower Basin that if the Upper Basin didn't build it, the Lower Basin would have to do so. |