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Show CHAPTER VI GENERAL PRINCIPLES TO GOVERN, AND OPERATING CRITERIA FOR, GLEN CANYON RESERVOIR (LAKE POWELL) AND LAKE MEAD DURING THE LAKE POWELL FILLING PERIOD A. Background The Colorado River Storage Project Act of April 11, 1956, Public Law 84-485, 70 Stat. 105, authorized construction of four storage units in the Upper Basin, including Glen Canyon Dam, primarily for river regulation and power production. It would permit the Upper Basin States to utilize their share of Colorado River water and, at the same time, insure the fulfillment of downstream commitments. The Act required the Department of the Interior to submit to the Congress periodically payout and related financial studies. This required estimates of power head at Glen Canyon Dam and assumptions as to streamflows and water uses. B. Participation by States As construction progressed, Secretary of the Interior Udall initiated studies, in consultation with the various interests in the Colorado River Basin, to determine how Lake Powell could accumulate storage with the least possible disruption to the many activities then dependent upon the flow of the river. These studies led to formulation of the "Filling Criteria" (see Senate Document No. 7, 88th Congress, 1st Session, March 14, 1963, entitled, "Colorado River Storage Project and Participating Projects," the text of which is included in Appendix 601). A memorandum from the Commissioner of Reclamation to the Secretary of the Interior, dated January 18, 1960, recited the background events. Pursuant to Secretarial invitations of October 4, 1957, a meeting was held in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 1957, attended by the Governors, or their representatives, of the seven Basin States and by other interested persons. At that time a statement prepared by the Bureau of Reclamation was discussed which included an analysis of certain assumed procedures under which storage would be accumulated in the Upper Basin reservoirs. This used average flows of the river during the period 1958-1970 and was termed "Hydrologic Bases for Financial Studies, Colorado River Storage Project" (Senate Document No. 101, 85th Congress, 2nd Session; the statement, as revised, is a part of Senate Document No. 77, 85th Congress, 2nd Session). At that meeting, the States of Arizona, California and Nevada offered for consideration their "Tri-State Criteria" (Senate Document No. 96, 85th Congress, 2nd Session). These were based upon the principles that the Lower Basin's right to the consumptive use of water is superior to the right to store water at Glen Canyon; that releases should be made from Glen Canyon for all Lower Basin consumptive use requirements, the Mexican Treaty requirements, and evaporation and channel losses; and that releases from Glen Canyon shall be in amounts required to generate the contracted quantities of energy at Hoover Dam. Both were unacceptable to the Upper Basin. California also questioned the assumptions used by the Department of the Interior (Governor Knight's letter of November 25, 1957). A second meeting was held on December 4 and 5, 1957, in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the Department of the Interior presented clarifying revisions in its hydrological data. Subsequently, an engineering group representing the Lower Basin States and the Bureau of Reclamation met on February 3 and 4, April 17 and 18, June 25 and 26, September 23 and 24, December 8 and 9, 1958, and March 4 and 5, 1959. A series of operational studies were made covering certain assumptions of runoff sequences. These differed from the average streamflows used in the "Hydrologic Bases." A summary dated August 20, 1959, was submitted by the Lower Basin engineering group. Bureau of Reclamation engineers also met on March 30 and 31, and August 4 through 6, 1959, with the Upper Colorado River Commission engineering committee which had made a number of operating studies. A summary thereof appears in the committee's letter of September 22, 1959. 101 |