10/20/06 Reclamation Anniversary

Reclamation Celebrates Anniversary. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Reclamation celebrated the 50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1956 at Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona Thursday. The event - themed 'CRSP: Water and Power&Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow' - commemorated the sweeping contributions the act has had on the growth and development of the Southwestern United States and Colorado River Basin. Mark Limbaugh - Assistant Secretary for Water and Science - says the abundant storage has meant uninterrupted delivery of water despite a continuing long term drought. LIMBAUGH: That's really been shown with Glen Canyon and with Lake Powell these past few years and the importance of that because it's delivered water to the lower basin so they can continue to provide an economy and provide water to the citizens and industry that has grown there and it's allowed the upper basin to continue to do the very same thing and right now the reservoirs are down about 50% because we've had 5, 6, 7 years of really bad drought but we've still met our deliveries. If Lake Powell wasn't there, Lake Mead would be empty by now. The act was passed in Congress and signed by President Eisenhower in 1956. Six months later - construction began on the Glen Canyon Dam. Eventually the capacity of the dams and reservoirs would add up to 30.6 million acre feet of water. Limbaugh calls the legislation visionary - and says it shaped the development of the West. LIMBAUGH: Putting these storage facilities in gave that upper basin an insurance policy if you will that allowed cities like Salt Lake and Denver and the farming communities in Colorado and Utah and Wyoming and New Mexico to thrive. The act also brought an affordable supply of hydroelectric power that now serves 5.8 million customers. Limbaugh says the advantage of hydroelectric is that it can be easily adjusted to meet power needs. Reclamation is the largest wholesale water supplier and the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the United States - with operations and facilities in the 17 Western States. Its facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits. LIMBAUGH: Hydroelectric power has allowed the west to grow. It's hard to peak with a coal-fired plant because it's just too expensive to ratchet that plant up and down but with a dam you can change the flows to producer more power at certain times of the day and less at others. And so that gives the west a major source of power that can follow the demand loads and that's an important part of keeping power costs at a level in the west that allows for a strong economic development. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.