•
417 South Hill Street
Los Angeles, Calif. 90013
Phone: 626-4621
r1ver associat·
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Colorado River Board of California has gone on record urging the Federal Government's Environmental Protection Agency to f1nance tnree prOJects that are part of plans be1ng developed by the Bureau of Reclamation to reduce the increasing
salinity of the Colorado River. Cost of the projects could exceed $100 million.
Myron B. Holburt, chief engineer of the CRB, estimates that construction and operation of the three projects would
eventually remove about 600,000 tons a year of dissolved salts from the river system.
Holburt said that, if the growing salinity of the river is not solved, damages to agricultural and municipal users in California alone may exceed $40 million annually by the year 2000.
The three projects would reduce salts now entering the river system at La Verkin Springs in southwestern Utah and from Grand Valley and Paradox Valley in Colorado.
The La Verkin Springs discharge warm saline water into the Virgin River which empties into Lake Mead. Bureau plans call for collecting the flow of the spri ngs and either evapor -ating or desalting the water, removing about 100,000 tons of salts a year, at a cost of $8 million to $10 million •
-2- COLORADO RIVER ASSOCIATION
Improved irrigat ion, water conveyance and distri-bution systems in Grand Valley would reduce by as much as 300,000 tons annually t he salts now entering the Colorado. Holburt said that implementation of this proposed project would also provide greater crop yields, improved crop quality ----~aoLnudu_~lawe.r_p.rodlJCtion costs.,.._for the.water 11SPTS jn Gran<L.ValJ.e_y__..
Cost of this project would be up to $70 m~llion to $80 million. The bureau's proposed solution to problems in Paradox Valley is to regulate high flows of the Dolores River and
other tributaries above the valley and divert them across the valley through a lined canal. The river channel now cuts through highl y saline mat er ial in the valley. About 200,000 tons of salt a year would be removed under this plan, which would cost between $25 million and $35 million.
t I t
