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Donald
Carson and James W. Johnson on
No issue in Arizona's 90 years of statehood has consumed its politicians more than use of Colorado River water. And perhaps no one had more conflicts with his decisions than the late Morris K. "Mo" Udall, who served in Congress for 30 years. Udall struggled with his strong environmental leanings and what his constituents viewed as their needs in his House of Representatives career. Udall often expressed regret over decisions he had made on major water issues, particularly on Colorado River dams and the Central Arizona Project, all of which had a major impact on the river. The native Arizonan's respect for water dates back to the stories from his grandfather told about the need to bring water to Arizona's arid landscape. "The Central Arizona Project is a very old dream," Udall said. "I first heard of it from my grandfather." David King Udall had served in Arizona's territorial legislature in the late 1800s when the issue first arose. Mo Udall
learned about river water when he helped irrigate the family farm
in St. Johns with water diverted from the Little Colorado River
It was in such settings that Udall developed an interest in the environment and the importance of conservation. Those early lessons served him well as one of the 20th century's most important environmentalists. The CAP was a case in point. Udall, who died in 1998 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease, once said he spent more time on the project than any issue in his congressional career...
"My days and nights for the past five years -- the busiest and most satisfying time of my life -- have been filled with the problems of the big, muddy, Colorado River, he said in 1968, after the legislation was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. The CAP was a motherhood, apple pie and American flag issue to Arizonans. His brother Stewart Udall, who was interior secretary during the fight for the CAP, said the "political hair was short" on the CAP. "No water, and you're dead politically." The CAP was originally intended to bring Colorado River water to Arizona's agricultural land. But the water proved too expensive for farmers and was sold instead to municipalities, which used it to fuel expansive growth. Although Udall fought long and hard for its authorization and funding, he had doubts late in his career whether the project, at first projected to cost $700 million and rose to $4.4 billion, was a good idea. Early on, Udall became embroiled in controversy over two proposed Colorado River dams -- so-called cash register dams - that were to generate electricity to help pay for the CAP. One was to be built at Bridge Canyon, downstream from the national park's boundaries, and the other upstream at Marble Canyon. The Sierra Club launched a campaign that contended the Grand Canyon would be flooded to the rim --- which was far from true -- launching a nationwide outcry and forcing removal of the dams from the CAP proposal in 1966. At the time, Udall called his decision to halt the dams "one of the most wrenching I've faced in Congress." Udall was quoted by Russell Martin, the author of "A Story That Stands Like a Dam," as saying,
The fervent opposition to the dams is often credited with sparking the environmental movement in the United States.
By
1975, Udall began having his doubts about the wisdom of building the
CAP.
Seven years later, Udall expressed more.
When the CAP water finally reached his hometown of Tucson in the late 1980s, Udall expressed even grader doubts.
But there was no turning back. The CAP is a 336-mile-long fact of life. Carson
and Johnson are authors of "Mo: The Life and Times of Morris
K. Udall |
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