Dam Battle - March 1967 Press

In February the Interior Department/Johnson administration and the Senate — Hayden, Jackson, & Anderson leading — allied on a Basin proposal stripped of 1966’s most controversial items. The Basin states were no longer in accord, but in scheduling hearings in mid-March, Chairman Aspinall wanted to make clear he aimed to put together a Basin bill based on states’ agreement to confront and correct what he saw as the shortcomings of the Interior-Senate version and the overreach of the 1966 bills.
Surprises were in store.

1 Mar, Post, marked Aspinall’s introduction of his “compromise” in the “tradition of compromise and fair play to try to bring two sharply opposed interests—water development advocates and the conservation groups—together.” The part of the Grand Canyon upstream of the existing National Park to the Glen Canyon N.R.A. would be added to the Park. An added bone would be extending 1) that northern end of the Park to the Vermillion Cliffs, and 2) the west end to take in part of the existing Grand Canyon National Monument. Hualapai Dam would be built. Lake Mead N.R.A. would be extended upstream to include the reservoir behind Hualapai.*
  Beyond his compromise, the bill would authorize the Colorado Five, a national water commission tasked with studying water import into the Colorado, California’s guarantee of its share of the River, and creation of a Basin fund to collect revenues for future development.