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Colorado River Storage Project


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.

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 7,500,000 acre feet (9.3 km3) 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 4,000,000 acre feet (4.9 km3) to 22,000,000 acre feet (27 km3). 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.


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