Wayne N. Aspinall Colorado River Storage Act of 1956 What was the Colorado River Storage Act of 1956? The bill, sponsored by Wayne Aspinall and several western allies, called for damming several areas in the Upper Basin of the Colorado River. Was the bill easy to pass? because of increased environmental awareness around the country, the majority of the public opposed the project. Was Aspinall eventually able to get the bill to pass through Congress? The bill passed the House 256-136 in March 1956 and then-President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law soon thereafter. What was Aspinall political position during this time period? Aspinall gained five other reclamation projects and three hydroelectric dams for the Fourth District. Why did the people oppose the Act? This became a volatile issue between environmentalists and water project advocates.
Is there anything else significant about Aspinall's role in the Colorado River Storage Act?
Aside from sponsoring the bill, was there anything else significant about Aspinall's role in the Colorado River Storage Act?
Aspinall favored dams and water reclamation projects for several reasons: (1) the power they generated; (2) general recreational use; and (3) he felt the key to Western economic prosperity lay in obtaining permanent stored supply of water for economic purposes. In Aspinall's mind, Americans had many opportunities to enjoy scenic areas, so damming a few of them would not hurt the country. After his career, he boasted that he had brought over $1 billion worth of water projects to his district. According to his observers, he "never met a dam he didn't like." The Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP) came before Congress in the early to mid-1950s. The bill, sponsored by Wayne Aspinall and several western allies, called for damming several areas in the Upper Basin of the Colorado River. It included the Echo Park Dam proposal, located within Dinosaur National Monument. This became a volatile issue between environmentalists and water project advocates. Located just below the Green and Yampa Rivers, the proposed 525-foot (160 m) high dam would have created a 43,000 acre (170 km2) lake, flooding the Green River Canyon for 63 miles (101 km) and the Yampa River Canyon for 44 miles (71 km). However, because of increased environmental awareness around the country, the majority of the public opposed the project. In 1954 alone, the Department of the Interior received 20,000 pieces of mail about the plan, and one insider estimated the letters ran 80 to 1 in opposition of the project. In 1954 and 1955, environmentalists defeated the controversial aspects of the CRSP. In '55, Aspinall conceded that for the bill to pass, he needed to sacrifice the Echo Park plan. Several more compromises between the two sides gave way to the Colorado River Storage Act of 1956 (Public Law 485, in chapter 203), which called for the creation of other irrigation projects and several large dams, including the Glen Canyon Dam in Utah, which created Lake Powell. Other projects created from the CRSP included the Flaming Gorge, Navajo, and Curecanti reservoirs. For his compromise, Aspinall gained five other reclamation projects and three hydroelectric dams for the Fourth District. The bill passed the House 256-136 in March 1956 and then-President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law soon thereafter. CANNOTANSWER
Aspinall conceded that for the bill to pass, he needed to sacrifice the Echo Park plan.
Wayne Norviel Aspinall (April 3, 1896 – October 9, 1983) was an American lawyer and politician from Colorado. He is largely known for his tenure in the United States House of Representatives, serving as a Democrat from 1949–1973 from Colorado's Fourth District. Aspinall became known for his direction of the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, of which he was the chairman from 1959–1973. Aspinall focused the majority of his efforts on western land and water issues.

His actions supporting resource development often drew the ire of the increasingly powerful environmental lobby in the 1960s. David Brower, a prominent executive director of the Sierra Club, said that the environmental movement had seen "dream after dream dashed on the stony continents of Wayne Aspinall."  The congressman returned the animosity, calling environmentalists "over-indulged zealots" and "aristocrats" to whom "balance means nothing."  This battle shaped Aspinall's congressional career.

Biography
Aspinall was born in Middleburg, Logan County, Ohio in 1896 and moved to Palisade, Colorado in 1904. He studied at the University of Denver until World War I, when he enlisted in the armed services (the Air Service of the Signal Corps). He returned to DU after his discharge and graduated in 1919. After several years of teaching around the state, he enrolled in law school in Denver and graduated in 1925. In 1930, he won a seat in the Colorado State House of Representatives, serving as Speaker in 1937 and 1938 before moving to the State Senate from 1939 to 1948. He served in World War II as a captain in Military Government during 1943 and 1944 as well. In 1948, he chose to run for national office, hoping for it to be a stepping stone to Colorado's governorship. However, he would stay in the U.S. House for 24 years.

Living on Colorado's Western Slope defined Aspinall's political ideology. His family had traditionally voted Republican, but the party's in-fighting in 1912 between Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft disillusioned Aspinall. However, despite becoming a Democrat, his rural roots shaped a relatively conservative philosophy. He believed in limited federal involvement in western land and water issues; to him, localities could better decide the uses of their resources. "When I was young…I lived outside the little town of Palisade, and the townspeople always seemed to call the shots. Then I moved to Palisade, and the bigger town of Grand Junction always seemed to call the shots. Then I went to the state Legislature, and the Eastern Slope…seemed to call the shots. And in Congress, the big metropolitan areas seemed to hold all the marbles."

His service in the U.S. House ended in 1972 with his loss in the Fourth District Democratic primary. However, Aspinall remained active in politics. He voiced his opinions on the need for the United States to become self-reliant for its energy needs, pushing oil shale development until his death in 1983.

Colorado history remembers Aspinall as one of the state's most influential politicians. Known as "The Chairman," he led the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee during a period that defined future water and land policy in the United States. Colorado governor Richard Lamm, a Democrat who had several ideological differences with Aspinall, remarked that "[N]o one in our history has done more to win Colorado a place at the table in Washington." He had a son, Owen Aspinall, who went on to become Governor of American Samoa.

Colorado River Storage Act of 1956
Aspinall favored dams and water reclamation projects for several reasons: (1) the power they generated; (2) general recreational use; and (3) he felt the key to Western economic prosperity lay in obtaining permanent stored supply of water for economic purposes. In Aspinall's mind, Americans had many opportunities to enjoy scenic areas, so damming a few of them would not hurt the country. After his career, he boasted that he had brought over $1 billion worth of water projects to his district. According to his observers, he "never met a dam he didn't like."

The Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP) came before Congress in the early to mid-1950s. The bill, sponsored by Wayne Aspinall and several western allies, called for damming several areas in the Upper Basin of the Colorado River. It included the Echo Park Dam proposal, located within Dinosaur National Monument. This became a volatile issue between environmentalists and water project advocates. Located just below the Green and Yampa Rivers, the proposed  high dam would have created a 43,000 acre (170 km2) lake, flooding the Green River Canyon for  and the Yampa River Canyon for . However, because of increased environmental awareness around the country, the majority of the public opposed the project. In 1954 alone, the Department of the Interior received 20,000 pieces of mail about the plan, and one insider estimated the letters ran 80 to 1 in opposition of the project.

In 1954 and 1955, environmentalists defeated the controversial aspects of the CRSP. In '55, Aspinall conceded that for the bill to pass, he needed to sacrifice the Echo Park plan. Several more compromises between the two sides gave way to the Colorado River Storage Act of 1956 (Public Law 485, in chapter 203), which called for the creation of other irrigation projects and several large dams, including the Glen Canyon Dam in Utah, which created Lake Powell. Other projects created from the CRSP included the Flaming Gorge, Navajo, and Curecanti reservoirs. For his compromise, Aspinall gained five other reclamation projects and three hydroelectric dams for the Fourth District. The bill passed the House 256–136 in March 1956 and then-President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law soon thereafter.

Frying Pan Arkansas Project of 1962
This plan, originally proposed in 1951, called for water diversion out of the Frying Pan and Roaring Fork Rivers on the Western Slope of Colorado to the Arkansas River, which flowed to a drier climate in the southeast part of the state. Because the Front Range (Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo) had a tremendous population advantage over the Western Slope, most of the state favored the project. Precedent for this maneuver had been set in 1937 with the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which transferred Western Slope water to farmers in northeast Colorado.

Because he wanted to focus the House's efforts on the CRSP in the mid-'50s, Aspinall tabled Fry-Ark until 1960. However, when the issue resurfaced, Aspinall's opinion created controversy in his own district. Many of his constituents disapproved of sending their water to the Front Range. Aspinall, however, pushed the plan through because he realized that as a strong proponent of public water development, it seemed contradictory for him to block reclamation projects that benefited others. The bill passed in August 1962 when Aspinall attained a plan calling for the construction of a  reservoir on the Roaring Fork River near Aspen, which would compensate the Western Slope for its loss of water.

Fry-Ark demonstrated Aspinall's resolve to proliferate the amount of publicly funded water projects throughout the West, pitting him against the wishes of the majority of his constituents in the early 1960s. He quickly regained favor with them, however, when its precedent eventually brought more dams and reclamation projects back to the Fourth District.

Wilderness Act of 1964
One of the first comprehensive pieces of environmental legislation during the era faced a lengthy battle in Congress between Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and western politicians like Aspinall. When the Wilderness bill first came to the House in 1961, Aspinall employed various stall tactics to never allow the popular bill out of the Interior Committee. He continued this through 1962 and into '63, earning him the wrath of the country's environmentalists, preservationist politicians, and a large amount of the public.

However, in November 1963 Aspinall made a deal with John F. Kennedy. Aspinall greatly desired a public land review commission (see below), while one of Kennedy's primary goals was the passage of the Wilderness Act. Aspinall agreed to release the bill in exchange for the administration's cooperation with the land commission. (Also, Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963 created an ethos in Washington that essentially made Kennedy a martyr. Lyndon Johnson took up and pushed through many of his legislative goals because of public empathy.)

Before Aspinall let the Wilderness Act of 1964 pass, he dropped the original request of 55 million acres (220,000 km2) of protected wilderness to only 9.1 million acres (37,000 km2). He also inserted a clause, called the "1984 clause," that allowed mining interests to still have access to many of these areas until December 31, 1983. Despite these concessions, the House passed it 373-1 and Lyndon Johnson signed it in September. The act also refused to turn over exclusive power to the executive branch, keeping some power in Congress for public land oversight. Ironically, the National Wildlife Federation named Aspinall their "Conservationist of the Year" in 1964 for his role in the eventual passage of the bill.

Colorado River Basin Act of 1968 and the Central Arizona Project
From 1966 to 1968, Aspinall took on the final significant water project battle of his congressional career. The purpose of the Colorado River Basin Project, according to supporters, was to build dams to generate revenue and energy for communities in the Lower Basin of the Colorado River without using much of the Upper Basin's river water. The primary focus of the project was the Central Arizona Project (CAP). CAP supporters, among other demands, wanted to build two dams, one that would flood Grand Canyon National Monument and part of Grand Canyon National Park (Bridge Canyon Dam), with the other on the edge of the Grand Canyon (Marble Canyon Dam). Aspinall originally supported this, claiming it would generate revenue for all Colorado River Basin states. In turn, however, he demanded that his district receive five reclamation projects for his support. Several congressmen, including Arizona senator Carl Hayden, saw this as action as a move that held the state hostage, and many would come to resent Aspinall for it.

Environmentalists vehemently opposed the CAP because of its detriment to the scenery of the Grand Canyon. Aspinall would later say "We viewed the development of the river as the only reasonable, practicable, safe, and logical way for millions of Americans and visitors to enjoy the canyon bottom which to date so few have had an opportunity to visit or view."  However, during the debate, the Sierra Club mocked that philosophy, purchasing an ad in national newspapers in July 1966. "Should we also flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can get nearer the ceiling?" it asked.

Sensing that he couldn't break the stalemate, Aspinall dropped the Grand Canyon dams from the CRPB in late August 1967. The bill eventually passed in the middle of 1968, creating the Colorado River Basin Act. However, in exchange for this compromise, Aspinall did receive five projects for Colorado (the Dallas Creek, Animas-La Plata, West Divide, San Miguel, and Dolores projects).

Of those five, only two were eventually built (Dolores and Dallas Creek). The Animas-La Plata project is currently under construction, and is one of the last major water projects in the West. Jimmy Carter declared a "Hit List" in 1977 on what he felt was wasteful spending on "pork barrel" water projects, eliminating the other three (among others). Furthermore, no new major reclamation projects were approved during the rest of the era, partly because Aspinall's heavy-handed demands that constrained the legislation broke apart the western coalition of politicians that supported the construction of water projects.

Public Land Law Review Commission
Kennedy's concession in 1963 to enact the Wilderness Act gave Aspinall the go-ahead to organize his pet project, the Public Land Law Review Commission (PLLRC) in 1965. The PLLRC reviewed all federal regulations affecting the control and uses of the nation's public lands and recommended changes that would help the federal government manage these areas more efficiently. Aspinall served as the commission's chair for the entirety of its existence, from 1965 until 1970.

The final report came out on June 23, 1970. Titled "One Third of the Nation's Lands," it gave 137 recommendations to Richard Nixon and Congress. Among its suggestions: 
 States should have a greater say in how public lands are managed
 Congress should have greater say in the uses of public land because the executive branch exerted too much singular influence
 All public-land issues should be concentrated under a new Department of Natural Resources, with committees in the House and Senate
 The Secretary of the Interior's power to withdraw public lands from development without Congressional approval should be limited
 Regional mining, timber, and grazing needs should be supported to increase economic growth in local communities
 The federal government should help stimulate the oil shale industry

Environmentalists blasted its findings. The Sierra Club accused the study of being "oriented toward maximum immediate commercial exploitation..." predicated upon a world with an "ever-expanding economy and unlimited resources."  Others stated that the report only considered studies and opinions favorable to Aspinall's political ideology. Many citizens were also still unhappy with Aspinall for blocking the creation of the Redwood National Park in California for half of the decade until its passage in 1968, and they saw this as more evidence that he served as a mouthpiece for the extractive industries' interests in Congress.

Aspinall proposed HR 9211 in his final session in Congress to implement many of the PLLRC's recommendations, but it failed to pass. During the height of the environmental movement, many of these suggestions were unacceptable to the public. However, later bills spawned from the ideas in the PLLRC, such as the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976.

1970 and 1972 Democratic primaries
After over two decades in office, the turbulent forces of the 1960s and early '70s caught up with Aspinall. With liberalism gaining strength throughout the country by protesting the Vietnam War and advocating civil rights for African Americans and equal rights for women, reformers gained control of the Democratic Party. They jumped on the opportunity to remove one of the party's most conservative members.

In 1970 a young Democrat named Richard Perchlik challenged Aspinall in the Fourth District Democratic primary. Although Aspinall won by over 11,000 votes in his first primary challenge since 1948, Perchlik's campaign portrayed Aspinall as old (74 at the time) and out of touch with the ideals of liberals on the war and the environment. The challenger also accused "The Chairman" of being too connected to the extractive special interests and railed against him for his role in what reformers viewed as a flawed seniority system in Congress.

Aspinall's friend and colleague, Democratic congressman Byron Rogers of Colorado's First District, did not survive 1970's primary season, however. A young liberal lawyer from Denver, Craig Barnes, defeated Rogers (although Barnes himself lost the general election). Rogers had a similar philosophy and legislative record to Aspinall, seemingly foreshadowing Aspinall's fate in 1972.

The degree to which Aspinall appreciated the challenge of liberal Democrats is debated. He did say that "this drive toward liberalism, organization of committees, etc., is causing me to wonder if I haven't reached the place where I should let some younger and more militant person take over."  However, he never altered his campaign message in 1972, even after the Republican-controlled Colorado General Assembly redrew the state's district lines to include largely liberal precincts in the Fourth District. "Wayne Aspinall represents all the interests because all the people have interest in our resources," his campaign said, continuing to target the miners, ranchers, and loggers that lived on the Western Slope. He never attempted to alter his message to assuage the concerns of his new liberal constituents.

His opponent in the 1972 Democratic primary, Alan Merson, employed the same strategy that Perchlik and Barnes used two years previously.  Merson attacked Aspinall for being slow to recognize developing energy problems, promoting policies that fed constant growth, building needless water projects, and being a tool of special interests. Merson received extensive external aid, accepting endorsements from The New York Times, Field and Stream, and even Reader's Digest. The environmental lobby provided most of the support to Merson's campaign, with $20,000 coming from the League of Conservation Voters. Environmental Action, having named Aspinall to their 1972 "Dirty Dozen" list of biggest congressional enemies to the environment, also endorsed Merson.

Using the young, liberal vote on the Front Range, Merson defeated Aspinall in the primary 53% to 47%. History credits Aspinall's loss to his age, the strength of the environmental issue in 1972, and the redistricting that cost "The Chairman" much of his conservative support on the Western Slope.

However, redistricting still favored Republicans, despite the liberal Merson's victory. Moving urban voters into the Fourth split the Democratic vote and consolidated Republican strength. Merson lost to James Paul Johnson, who had been Aspinall's unsuccessful Republican opponent in 1966, in the general election in November 1972.

Post-Congressional life
Aspinall stayed relatively active after leaving office in January 1973. He crossed party lines and endorsed Gerald Ford for president in 1976. He also pressed for further exploration of oil shale in the late 1970s, serving on the board of directors for the Paraho Oil Shale Demonstration, Inc., hoping to lead the country to an alternative energy source to end American reliance on oil during the energy crisis caused by the Arab Oil Embargo.

He proudly took part in the Sagebrush Rebellion, a western philosophy popular from 1979–1982 that attempted to reclaim some federally protected land for determination by states and local governments.

Aspinall resumed the practice of law, was a resident of Palisade, Colo., until his death there October 9, 1983; he was cremated, and his ashes were interred at Orchard Mesa Municipal Cemetery, Grand Junction, Colorado. The United States Post Office and Courthouse in Grand Junction was renamed the Wayne N. Aspinall Federal Building in 1972.

References

 Aspinall, Wayne N. Papers, Election Files and Grand Junction Office Files. 1948–1973. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries, Archives. Accessed February 27, 2006.
 Schulte, Steven C. Wayne Aspinall and the Shaping of the American West. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2002.
 Sturgeon, Steven Craig. Wayne Aspinall and the Politics of Western Water. Doctoral Thesis. History, 1998, University of Colorado at Boulder. Directed by Prof. Patricia Nelson Limerick.

External links
 http://digital.library.du.edu/findingaids/view?docId=ead/m008.xml;query=;brand=default Guide to the Wayne Aspinall Papers at the University of Denver, retrieved 2014-09-25. 
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The Colorado River Storage Project is a United States Bureau of Reclamation project designed to oversee the development of the upper Colorado River basin.  The project provides hydroelectric power, flood control and water storage for participating states along the upper portion of the Colorado River and its major tributaries.

Since its inception in 1956, the project has grown to include the participation of several related water management projects throughout the river's basin. The project's original scope, and primary focus, are the upper Colorado River itself, the Green River, the San Juan River, and the Gunnison River.

Participating states are Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.

History
Attempts at managing the water supply in the upper Colorado River basin were first recorded in 1854 at Fort Supply in Wyoming, when water was diverted from Blacks Fork to irrigate local lands. Subsequent diversions of the waters in the Colorado basin led to preliminary investigations of means to develop the system as early as 1902 when the Bureau of Reclamation, then known as the Reclamation Service, was established.

Serious consideration for the project began when the Colorado River Compact was signed in 1922 by the participating states, as well as the lower Colorado River states, California and Nevada.  As a stipulation of that compact, the upper basin states were required to ensure an annual flow of no less than  be delivered to the lower basin states.  However, the annual flow of the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry in Arizona, the established dividing point, were extremely erratic, ranging from  to .  This led to an inability of the upper basin states to meet the minimum delivery requirements to the lower states in dry years, and a loss of significant surpluses in wet years.  

In order to regulate the flow of the Colorado and ensure compliance with the compact, a study was undertaken that determined a series of dams and reservoirs on the river and its tributaries would be necessary.  A joint effort between the Upper Colorado River Commission, the Bureau of Reclamation and other federal agencies delivered a report with proposed projects to the United States Congress in 1950.

Among the proposed projects was a dam to be constructed on the Green River in Echo Park, in Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado.  The proposal for Echo Park Dam created controversy and sparked the ire of Sierra Club director David Brower, who embarked on a national campaign to rescue the park.  As part of a compromise, the proposed dam was stricken from the project and replaced with another dam in Glen Canyon, Arizona.  Brower, who had not personally visited Glen Canyon prior to the compromise, later lamented the deal, describing it as "the worst mistake of his career"  and "'the biggest sin I ever committed'".

A revised, and slightly pared down, version of the plan was passed into law by Congress in 1956.  The legislation called for the construction of dams, reservoirs and related works at Curecanti in Colorado, Flaming Gorge in Wyoming, Navajo in New Mexico and Glen Canyon in Arizona.  All but the Navajo project were to include power generation capabilities; the Navajo project was intended as flood control only.  Also included in the legislation were several related projects in the Colorado River basin.

Project scope
The Colorado River Storage Project is made up of four separate units, spread along the upper Colorado basin and its major tributaries.  Also included are several participating projects located throughout the system.

As a whole, the system provides a storage capacity of approximately  of water.  This capacity is released to meet the Colorado River Compact's delivery requirements during periods of low flow in the system.  Additionally, three of the units provide hydroelectric power to major markets in the southwest.

Lee's Ferry in Arizona serves as the southern boundary point for the project, which encompasses the Colorado River upstream from this point and all tributaries.

Glen Canyon Unit

The Glen Canyon Unit, which consists of the Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Powerplant, is the largest and most important unit of the system.  While the dam is located near Page in northern Arizona, the majority of Lake Powell resides in southern Utah.  With a total storage capacity of  of water in Lake Powell, the Glen Canyon Unit accounts for over 64% of the system's overall water storage capacity.  The 1,296 megawatt capacity of the dam's hydroelectric generators accounts for almost 75% of the overall generating capacity of the project.

In spite of its importance to the system, the Glen Canyon Unit has also been the source of controversy even before it began operating in 1964.  Sierra Club director David Brower, who was partially responsible for the location of the dam as part of a compromise, later regretted the decision.  Former Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who was a proponent of the dam in the beginning, later recanted his opinion and admitted that he, too, had regretted supporting the project.  Recent calls for the draining of Lake Powell and the restoration of Glen Canyon by environmental groups such as Sierra Club have resulted in the founding of several advocacy groups for the cause such as Living Rivers and Friends of Glen Canyon, as well as opposition groups such as Friends of Lake Powell.  Given the importance of the unit to the project as well as its impact as a tourist destination to the region, restoration efforts face significant opposition and there currently exist no plans to cease operations at Glen Canyon.

Not directly a part of the project but built as a direct result of it, the Glen Canyon Dam Bridge was constructed over the river in 1959.  At the time of its completion it was the highest arch bridge in the world.  It currently serves as one of only two bridges to cross the Colorado River between Lake Mead and Lake Powell, carrying the majority of the traffic between northern Arizona and southern Utah.

Flaming Gorge Unit

The Flaming Gorge Unit consists of the Flaming Gorge Dam and the Flaming Gorge Reservoir, and the dam's powerplant.  The dam impounds the Green River near Dutch John, Utah.  Portions of the reservoir spill over into Southern Wyoming near the city of Green River.

Completed in 1964, the dam provides water storage and hydroelectric generation, as well as flood control on the Green River, the primary tributary to the Colorado.  The powerplant in the dam has a capacity of 153 megawatts or about 8.5% of the entire system.

Navajo Unit
The Navajo Unit consists of the Navajo Dam and the Navajo Lake reservoir.  The dam impounds the San Juan River near Farmington, New Mexico.

The dam was completed in 1963, and was actually the first of the units in the project to be completed.  Unlike the subsequent dams, Navajo Dam did not have any power generating capacity when built. A small plant with a capacity of 32 MW was installed in 1983 in conjunction with the city of Farmington to generate local power.

Aspinall Unit
The Aspinall Unit consists of 3 dams and reservoirs on the Gunnison River in Colorado.  It is the only unit in the project to be made up of more than one dam or reservoir.

The Aspinall Unit was originally named the Curecanti Unit, but was renamed for former congressman Wayne N. Aspinall in 1980.  Aspinall had been a strong proponent of water reclamation projects in Colorado and the western US in general, and was seen as a key opponent to David Brower in the fight to enact the Colorado River Storage Project.  Brower was known to have fought regularly with Aspinall, going so far as to state that he had seen "dream after dream dashed on the stony continents of Wayne Aspinall."

As a whole, the Aspinall Unit has a generating capacity of about 290 megawatts, or about 17% of the entire Colorado River Storage Project, making it the second most productive unit after Glen Canyon.

Blue Mesa Dam
The Blue Mesa Dam impounds the Gunnison River upstream of the Morrow Point Dam forming the Blue Mesa Reservoir, making it the first dam the river passes through.  The dam was completed in 1966 and has an electric generating capacity of 86,400 kilowatts, or about 30% of the Aspinall Unit's generating capacity.

Morrow Point Dam

The Morrow Point Dam impounds the Gunnison River downstream from the Blue Mesa Dam but upstream of the Crystal Dam, forming the Morrow Point Reservoir, putting it in the center of the Aspinall Unit.  Completed in 1968, Morrow Point is the largest and most productive of the Aspinall dams.  Morrow Point has a generating capacity of 173,334 kilowatts, making it the second most productive dam in the entire Colorado River Storage Project system.  It provides about 60% of the Aspinall Unit's generating capacity.

Additionally, the Morrow Point Dam is the first thin-arch concrete dam to be built in the Colorado River Storage Project system.

Crystal Dam
The Crystal Dam impounds the Gunnison River about 6 miles (10 km) downstream from the Morrow Point Dam, making it the final dam in the Aspinall Unit.  Completed in 1976, it is the last dam in both the Aspinall Unit and the Colorado River Storage Project to be completed, marking the final completion of the system as a whole.

Crystal Dam forms the Crystal Reservoir and has the smallest capacity of the hydroelectric dams in the system, providing some 31,500 kilowatts capacity, or just over 1% of the Aspinall Unit's capacity.

Participating projects
A number of water management projects in various locations of the upper Colorado River basin are considered participating projects in the Colorado River Storage Project.  These projects are financially related to the CRSP but are not considered a part of the project itself.

Eleven projects were included as participating projects in the 1956 legislation.  These projects include:
 Central Utah Project, numerous dams and reservoirs in central Utah
 Emery County Project, covering dams in Emery County, Utah
 Florida Project, on the Florida River in southwestern Colorado
 Hammond Project, on the San Juan River in northeastern New Mexico
 La Barge Project in Wyoming
 Lyman Project, on the Blacks Fork and Smiths Fork of the Green River, primarily in Wyoming
 Paonia Project in west-central Colorado
 Pine River Project in western Colorado
 Seedskadee Project on the upper Green River Basin in Wyoming
 Silt Project in west-central Colorado
 Smith Fork Project in west-central Colorado

Wyoming's Eden Project was authorized independently in 1949.  It was tied to the Colorado River Storage Project by the terms of its own authorization.

An amendment to the legislation in 1962 added two projects to the participants list:
 San Juan-Chama Project, diverting water from the San Juan River basin out to the Rio Grande basin
 Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, performed on behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

A 1964 amendment added three more projects:
 Bostwick Park Project, involving Cimarron Creek, a tributary of the Gunnison River
 Fruitland Mesa Project in Colorado
 Savery-Pot Hook Project in Colorado and Wyoming

The Colorado River Basin Project Act in 1968 added a final five projects to the participants list:
 Animas-La Plata Water Project in Colorado and New Mexico
 Dallas Creek Project, a tributary of the Uncompahgre River, in turn a tributary of the Gunnison River
 Dolores Project in southwestern Colorado
 San Miguel Project, Colorado
 West Divide Project, Colorado

Four projects, the Fruitland Mesa, Savery-Pot Hook, San Miguel and West Divide Projects, were later found to be infeasible and removed from the list.

Project impact

Power, water, and recreational impact 
The four primary units of the Colorado River Storage Project have a maximum output of 1,813 megawatts of hydroelectric power at any given time, comparable to a large coal-fired generating station such as the Navajo Generating Station.

The Blue Mesa and Navajo Dams, built primarily to function for flood control purposes, have saved approximately $10 million in flood-related costs up to the year 1999.

Additionally, the various units of the project have created significant recreational opportunities throughout the otherwise arid southwest regions.

Environmental impact 
The project has changed the ecosystem in the Colorado River, including in Grand Canyon National Park. Glen Canyon Dam in particular has been the subject of much environmental criticism.

Water trapped behind the dams cools and drops its sediment load in the reservoirs. Natural floods of warm sediment-rich water flowing down the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon, and on to the Colorado River Delta created sandbars and beaches along the river's course and throughout its canyons. These floods have been replaced with metered releases of cold, sediment-free water which has led to the erosion of sandbars in the Grand Canyon that are crucial for wildlife and has altered the food web within the river with natural species being displaced by invasive species. Attempts to simulate natural flood cycles were started in the 2000s but have thus far failed to restore the natural environment in the canyon.

The project has changed the topography of the river with the heavy loads of silt trapped behind the dams deposited in the upper reaches of the reservoirs. These silt loads have filled up the inundated canyons and are now coming to the surface as the water levels in the reservoirs drop.

The creation of large reservoirs and irrigation systems along the river as part of the project has increased the surface area of the Colorado River and the length of time the water is held in the basin which in turn increases the amount of water lost to evaporation. Some estimates indicate that 8.5 million acre feet of water is being lost each year, equivalent to the average amount of water released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead.

Water from the Colorado River rarely reaches the Colorado River Delta anymore due to usage and evaporative loss within the Project. This has reduced the size of the estuary at the mouth of the river from 3,000 square miles to fewer than 250 square miles. Invasive species have become dominant in the Delta and the loss of this habitat has had wider implications for marine life in the Gulf of California.

References

External links
 Colorado River Storage Project
 CRSP Management Site – Archived site

 
Colorado River
History of the American West
United States Bureau of Reclamation Crystal Reservoir is a 340-acre artificial reservoir on the Gunnison River in western Colorado.  Located in the upper Black Canyon of the Gunnison, the lake was created in 1976 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as part of a larger plan to impound the upper section of the Gunnison for the generation of hydroelectric power, water storage, and public recreation.  Crystal Reservoir is managed by the National Park Service as an element of the Curecanti National Recreation Area.  Located at the far western end of Curecanti, Crystal Reservoir is the smallest, least developed, and least accessible of the three reservoirs within the park.

Background

Crystal Reservoir is part of the Wayne N. Aspinall Unit of the Colorado River Storage Project, a Bureau of Reclamation project that retains the waters of the Colorado River and its tributaries, such as the Gunnison, for agricultural and municipal use.  Crystal Reservoir was created by the impoundment of the Gunnison River approximately 6 miles west of Morrow Point Dam by Crystal Dam, a 323-ft. concrete double-arch dam built by the Bureau of Reclamation.  The last of three reservoirs impounded for the Aspinall Unit, construction on Crystal Dam began in 1973, 5 years after the completion of Morrow Point Dam and 7 years after the completion of Blue Mesa Dam.  The westernmost of the three reservoirs, Crystal is the last impoundment before the river enters the deep and dangerous Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Recreation

Crystal Reservoir is part of the Curecanti National Recreation Area, a National Park Service administered area responsible for developing and managing recreation facilities on the three reservoirs of the Aspinall Unit. 

 Recreational opportunities at Crystal include boating (hand-carried craft only), camping, and hiking.  There are two small developed areas near the reservoir, Mesa Creek Trailhead and Crystal Creek Trailhead.  Mesa Creek Trailhead is located immediately west of Point Morrow Dam, and can be accessed from a one-mile road running north of U.S. 50 at Cimarron.  Hand-launched watercraft can be launched into Crystal from Mesa Creek.  A single boat-in campsite is located approximately 4 miles west of Mesa Creek at the mouth of Crystal Creek.  Mesa Creek is also the trailhead for the Mesa Creek Trail, a fairly to moderately strenuous 1.5 mile round trip that crosses the reservoir on a footbridge and travels west along the north shore. Though Mesa Creek is a day-use facility, developed campsites are available at nearby Cimarron.  Crystal Creek Trailhead is located on Colorado Highway 92, 24 miles west of Blue Mesa Dam and offers access to the 5-mile (round trip) Crystal Creek Trail.  Moderately strenuous, Crystal Creek trail does reach the water but ends at an overlook 1800 ft. above the reservoir.

See also

List of largest reservoirs of Colorado
Colorado River Storage Project
Crystal Dam
Curecanti National Recreation Area
Blue Mesa Reservoir
Morrow Point Reservoir

External links
NPS: Curecanti National Recreation Area
Bureau of Reclamation: Crystal Dam

References

Reservoirs in Colorado
Gunnison River
Colorado River Storage Project
Curecanti National Recreation Area
Lakes of Gunnison County, Colorado
Protected areas of Gunnison County, Colorado
1976 establishments in Colorado