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Show The tunnel will create a waste disposal problem, and streambed scouring may occur in streams which receive increased flows beyond their normal capacity. Augmentation of the Bonneville Basin Water Supply from Another Basin The Western United States Water Plan studies ( a Federal interagency effort now in progress) are attempting to define the total water supply, present use, and projected water requirements for various periods in the 11 western states which lie wholly or partly west of the Continental Divide. A legislative moratorium has been imposed until 1978 en investigations on " the importation of water into the Colorado River Basin from any other natural river drainage basin lying outside the States of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and those portions of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming which are in the natural drainage basin of the Colorado River." 1" 3 It also appears unlikely that augmentation of the Bonneville Basin supply would occur before the state water supplies have been fully developed. This is expected to occur in about 30 to 50 years. Many international and interregional water transfers have been proposed that would provide water to augment the Bonneville Basin supply. Most of these plans would involve the exportation of water from Canada to the United States. Others would bring water from northern California coastal streams and/ or the Columbia River into the Colorado River Basin. By exchange, additional supplies could then be made available by transbasin diversion from the Uinta Mountains to the Bonneville Basin. In June 196° " the Western States Water Council published a booklet1^ summarizing several of these plans, and a few are described in the following paragraphs ( l) International Water Transfer Proposals ( a) North American Water and Power Alliance ( NAWAPA) NAWAPA is a plan to divert water from the northwest part of North America to the warmer areas of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The NAWAPA system would originate in sparsely settled and undeveloped regions of Alaska and in Canada's Yukon Territory, where huge dams would store and divert 20 percent of the runoff from river basins such as the Tanana, Yukon, Cooper, Athabasca, and Susitna. A series of interconnected reservoirs at varying elevations up to 59000 feet would be provided. The water would then flew south through a complex of canals, tunnels, lakes, dams, lifts, and reservoirs, picking up new supplies in British Columbia from the Liard, Fraser, Peace, Kootenay, Columbia, and ether rivers. The regulating reservoir of the system 545 |
