Hi All, some of you have been sending Jeff Ingram kind cards about his work for passage of the Grand Canyon Enlargement Act, January 3, 1975. Thanks for doing that. Over the last two days, I did four hours of oral history with Jeff, and I learned some way-interesting info. He talked about being bitten by a rattlesnake in Papago Canyon on his right hand. He was climbing up the slot, reached up for a handhold and “Bam.” He was bitten in the side of his right hand below his little finger. His whole right arm swelled up and turned black and blue while he waited patiently for his friends to work out a rescue… But he also talked about how the authorization to build Marble and Bridge Canyon dams was removed from the legislation that would contain, among other things, the Central Arizona Project. By the summer of 1966, Jeff was the Southwest Regional Director for the Sierra Club, a position David Brower had managed to get the Sierra Club board to authorize for Jeff in the late fall of 1965. The legislation that contained the dams, HR 4671, was a huge water buffalo pork barrel, with lots of upper and lower basin horse-trading. California would support the legislation if their rights were protected as senior to Arizona’s. California wanted the two dams, as they saw them as ways to make power for moving water from the Columbia River to Los Angeles. Colorado was “in” as long as the Dolores and Animas La Plata water projects were included. During the hearings, Jeff testified saying the CAP could be built without the two dams and the power they could generate. While others were saying “Don’t destroy the Grand Canyon,” Jeff was saying there were real alternatives to the dams. Reclamation had shot themselves in the foot as they had tied Bridge and Marble Canyon to the CAP as a Reclamation Project. Jeff showed the two dams were only going to provide peaking power, while base load power was the power that was needed, not hydroelectric peaking power. He also showed these dams might be used to make power to route the Columbia south to California. The Pacific Northwest folks, including Tom Foley, wanted nothing to do with that, and began to weigh in against their inclusion. The arguments against the two dams were good, even though the votes were not quite there to stop it. Ingram and others did lots of lobbying, and continued to be a potential stumbling block. California was locked-in only if water was coming in from the Northwest. Without the dams, California might not support the bill. California Representatives were on the committee, and they may have made it clear the bill was not going anywhere. Republican House member John Saylor, a giant of a man from Pennsylvania, was dead set against the bill as well, for conservation reasons. In the end, it was a combination of a lot of different reasons that killed the two dams. In the fall of 1966, Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall asked Reclamation to come up with options for the CAP without the Dams. He did this when the head of Reclamation, Floyd Dominy, was away in China. This allowed the coal fired power plant to be built at Page to guarantee the electricity for the CAP. In 1967, in a new Congress, the Senate put forward a bill with the coal plant and the CAP, but there were no dams, and no study of taking Colombia water to California. That bill would be the one that eventually passed. Jeff would leave the Club, as would Brower, in the next two years, but Jeff would continue on with the Grand Canyon Enlargement Act, working outside but along with the Club. That’s another story. Thanks Jeff!! All the best, tom
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 04:25:19 +0000
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