[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 27, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H621-H625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE ISSUE OF WATER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, this evening I wanted to talk about a 
subject that is near and dear to my heart, obviously a subject that is 
important to all of us, no matter where you reside or what district you 
represent in the United States, and that is the issue of water.
  Now, water generally is a pretty boring subject, as long as it 
continues to run out of the tap, or when you turn on the bath water it 
is there, or when you want to go fishing and the lake is at the right 
level. But water is a very critical issue for us to keep an eye on.
  The United States is very unique in that the geographical layout of 
this country is such that water is dramatically different and the 
issues dealing with water are dramatically different in the western 
portion of the United States than they are in the eastern portion of 
the United States.
  For example, half of the land mass of the United States, half of the 
land mass, which I will point out a little later on, only has 14 
percent of the water. If one draws a line down, say, between Kansas and 
the State of Missouri, from north to south, that eastern portion has 
70-some percent, maybe 72 percent of the water in that smaller portion 
of the Nation. So we have got a Nation that is large, but the water is 
not equally divided.
  Likewise, the State that I represent, the State of Colorado, is the 
only State in the Union where it has no inflowing water. No water comes 
into Colorado for use within the borders of Colorado.
  Colorado is a very unique State, and I intend to spend some time this 
evening talking about the relationship of Colorado to the Nation's 
water, specifically the Colorado River. The Colorado River, of course, 
is called the Mother of Rivers.
  Colorado is interesting in that Colorado is the highest State in 
elevation of all 50 States in the country. In fact, there are about 67 
mountains in the United States, including Alaska, that are over 14,000 
feet, and of those 67 mountains, 56 of them, I think, 56 of the 67, you 
find in the State of Colorado. Mountains over 13,000 feet, there is 
like 700 mountains in the United States that are over 13,000 feet; and 
of those 700, 600 of them are located in the State of Colorado.
  That is critical. The reason the elevation is critical because, 
obviously, at the higher elevations is where you have your massive 
accumulations of snow and moisture during the winter months. That, of 
course, is very determinative as to what kind of spring runoff and what 
kind of water you are going to have for a good portion of the Nation as 
far as surface water is concerned for your months where you do not have 
heavy moisture.
  Colorado really is a very dry State. In fact, that part of the west 
of the United States is a very arid portion of the Nation. It gets very 
little moisture. I will give some statistics as we go on into this 
conversation we are having this evening.
  But when one takes a look at Colorado, it is very arid during most 
months of the year, which makes it even more dependent on those winter 
months and that snow accumulation and its relationship to the months 
that we have very little rain.

[[Page H622]]

  By the way, I never really knew what rain was until I came to the 
East. In the West our droplets are very cold and very little droplets 
of rain. You come to the East, man, it seems like it rains forever. But 
out there in Colorado we are very dependent in the months where we have 
very low rainfall, which are most months of the year. We then have to 
rely on the water that we have either been able to store or accumulate 
because of the snow that has come down on those mountains.
  What is interesting in history is one of the first dams ever 
discovered goes back in the Mesa Verde National Park around 1,000 A.D., 
and there they found an ancient irrigation system. It did not take man 
very long to figure out that water does not always necessarily flow on 
where you need it and when you need it. So when you need it, that is 
when man first began to develop some way to store it, because, 
obviously, the stream did not stay at the same level all year-round and 
where you needed it. It led man for the first time to take water and 
move it from its natural course, to divert it to where the man or 
animals or agriculture needed it.
  Every person in America diverts their water. Every person in America 
diverts water for their use. That is how you get water diverted from 
its source into, for example, your house, or onto your farm field, or 
into your communities, or into the buildings that you visit. So there 
are a lot of interesting things about water.
  But you can start off by looking at the water supply throughout the 
world. When you notice the water supply in the world, something is very 
interesting: 97 percent, 97 percent of the water supply in the world, 
is salt water. And until we are able to come up with desalinization at 
an economic price, and I am sure the future generations will be able to 
do that, but for our generation in existence today it is not 
economically viable to take that salt water and convert it to clear 
water with any kind of quantity. So 97 percent of the water in this 
world really right now is pretty much off limits.
  Then you take a look what the balance is, and the balance of the 3 
percent. You have got 3 percent left of water that is clear water. Most 
of that 3 percent, most of it, almost all of it, in fact, again 90 
percent of that 3 percent, is water that is not salt water, but it is 
tied up in the iceberg, frozen solid, so we do not have access to that 
as well. So really the amount of water that is available for 
consumption that does not have high levels of salinity is very limited 
when you look at the picture as a whole.
  Now, as I mentioned earlier, it is pretty interesting, because a lot 
of people, including myself, I was stunned when I first saw this poster 
to my left, and I would like to point out some of it to you, because I 
think it is pretty interesting.
  It is amazing, it is stunning, to see how much water is necessary, 
how much water the average person uses in their daily consumption. I do 
not mean just glasses of water or the bottles of water that one may 
drink during an average day. I am talking about the quantity of water 
that is necessary for your food, for example, or for your everyday 
living needs.
  I think this chart is one of the best demonstrations that I have seen 
of what water usage is, so you have a pretty accurate picture of just 
how dependent you are on water. Water usage. Americans are fortunate. 
We can turn on the faucet and get all the clean and fresh water we 
need. Many of us take water for granted.
  Have you ever wondered how much water you use each day? Look at this 
chart. Direct uses of water. Drinking and cooking, 2 gallons. Now, this 
is per person. Per person. Two gallons of water to drink it and cook 
with it. Flushing the toilet, 5 to 7 gallons per flush. Now, that has 
come down just a little with the new toilets we have, but basically 
that number will probably be accurate going from about 3 to 6 gallons 
per flush. Washing machine, if you do one load, 20 gallons of water 
just to do a load of wash. Your dishwasher, 25 gallons per load. Taking 
a shower, 7 to 9 gallons per minute.
  Now, look at this: growing food. That is what is really fascinating. 
In order to produce one loaf of bread, in other words, prepare the farm 
field, grow the wheat, et cetera, process the wheat, bake the bread, et 
cetera, one loaf of bread requires, by the time that loaf of bread is 
ready for consumption, 150 gallons of water.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. Speaker, 150 gallons of water to prepare one loaf of bread. One 
egg. One egg. That is not a dozen eggs; one egg requires 120 gallons of 
water. These are numbers that we have never even imagined. But take a 
look at it. One quart of milk, 223 gallons of water to produce 1 quart 
of milk. A pound of oranges, it takes 47 gallons of water. A pound of 
potatoes takes 23 gallons. It takes more than 1,000 gallons of water to 
produce three meals a day for one person. For one person to have three 
meals a day, it takes over 1,000 gallons of water to produce that food 
product. So clearly we can see that the amount of water that is 
consumed in our society is primarily consumed for our agricultural 
needs.
  What happens to 50 glasses of water? This chart I think demonstrates 
what I have just said. If we lined up 50 glasses of water and we begin 
to move those glasses as to where their consumption was, we would take 
our first 44 glasses of that 50, scoot that aside, that is just what is 
necessary for our agricultural requirements in this country. Three 
glasses are used by industry for production. In other words, even the 
wheat production, we take the wheat off the farm, we move it into a 
production facility, say, for example, to bake the bread. Those 
requirements are about three glasses; three of those glasses would go 
for those requirements. Two glasses are used by the cities, and one-
half of a glass is used out in the country. I think it is a pretty 
interesting chart. It lets us realize just exactly how important water, 
how important water is.
  Let me move on just a little from there. I think this is a pretty 
clear map right here to show some of the differences, pretty dramatic 
differences of the layout of the United States. Remember that when they 
settled the country in the early days, that most of our population 
lived on the East Coast. The population in the United States is not 
evenly spread now. In fact, I heard a statistic the other day that if 
we took all of the population and put it together like in one large 
city, it only takes a very, very small fraction of the amount of land 
that currently exists in the United States. Obviously, our population 
is not put together like that, it is spread out through the country. 
But in the early days of the founding of the United States, the 
population was primarily focused on the East Coast.
  As our government began to acquire additional land, to expand this 
ever-growing Nation, to create the United States of America, as they 
acquired this land, they had to figure out how to really get control of 
the land. Now today, in this country, when we buy a piece of property, 
we do not actually have to be on the property. We can have a piece of 
paper, a little thing called a deed; and that deed filed at the 
courthouse protects our rights on that land. But that is not how it was 
back then. In fact, a piece of paper really was not worth a whole lot. 
The only way back then, or the primary way back then for one to protect 
the rights that one had on that land was to possess the land. That is 
where the old saying came from, that possessions is nine-tenths of the 
law. That is exactly where that came from.
  So in the early days of the founding of this country, as we began to 
acquire this land, our leaders back on the East Coast said, how do we 
encourage people, how do we get people to leave the comfort of the East 
Coast and move to the West? West being maybe only as far as western 
Virginia, or not very far west at all. How do we get people to move out 
there? How do we settle this country.
  Well, the answer was, look, everybody in America, the American dream, 
even in its early stages of this country, the American dream was, one, 
individual rights and, two, the opportunity to own a piece of property. 
In other words, the land would not be owned by the government. People 
got to own a piece of property that they could build a home on, that 
they could farm on; and back then, in excess of 98 percent of our 
population lived on farms and agriculture and put their hands in the 
soil. So owning a piece of land back then was just as important as it 
is today. We all dream of owning our own homes.

[[Page H623]]

  So our leaders decided to take advantage of that and say, look, the 
incentive that we should give to these people is if they will go out 
and help us settle the West, help us settle this new country, we will 
give them land, the land grants or the homestead acts. Remember that it 
was not new. It had already been tested. In fact, our government used 
it during the Revolutionary War to try and bribe British soldiers to 
defect and come over to our side; and if they did, we would give them a 
land grant or we would give them a homestead. That land could be their 
land that they would individually own.
  Well, this worked pretty well. The government began offering, and we 
can see by this chart entitled ``Government, Lands'' the government 
began to see the populations become westward and moving to the west. Do 
we know what happened? We discovered that on 160 acres out in Kansas or 
Missouri or even in eastern Colorado or up in Nebraska where some of 
the most fertile land in the country is, all of these people out in 
Virginia, a family could be supported off of 160 acres, that the soil 
was so fertile that that was an adequate amount of land to give.

  But then word got back to Washington to our leaders. Hey, we are 
having a problem, because as the population begins to hit those high 
elevations in Colorado, when the population runs into the mountains, 
the Rocky Mountains, the Continental Divide, they are not staying 
there, because they are discovering that with 160 acres, one can not 
even feed a cow with 160 acres. They cannot possibly support a family 
off only 160 acres.
  So our leaders in Washington sat down and said, How do we persuade 
people to go ahead and settle in these areas? What is happening is they 
are going around to the Imperial Valley, as demonstrated here in 
California where we have this white spot. So they had a lot of debate 
back in Washington; and the conclusion really was, well, one of the 
ideas or one of the solutions was, let us give them a proportionate 
amount of land. If 160 acres is what is necessary in the State of 
Nebraska to support a family, let us give a family in the Rocky 
Mountains 3,000 acres. Maybe that is what is necessary to support a 
family.
  Well, during this period of time from a historical basis was also the 
time when we had the building of the Continental Railroad, for example, 
and other land grants that were going out there. Washington was under a 
lot of pressure not to give away so much land.
  So the conclusion was, look, giving away 3,000 acres to just one 
family is too much land to give to just one family. We cannot just give 
it away like that. So somebody came up with the idea of well, instead 
of giving the land away, why does the government not go ahead and 
retain title. The government will continue to be the owner in name of 
this land, but we will let the people move onto the land. We will let 
the people use the land. We will come up with a new concept called 
multiple use. We will let people use the land for many purposes. They 
can live on it. They can have roads on it. They can recreate on it, 
fish on it, enjoy it. Let us do that. But for formality purposes, we 
will just keep it in our names so we do not have the political pressure 
of giving away too much land. That is exactly what happened in the 
West.
  On this map to my left we will see that all of the colors on this map 
indicate government-owned land. We will see in the East, it is almost, 
with the exceptions of the Appalachias down here, a portion of the 
Everglades, a little up here in the Northeast. But some of these States 
do not have any government land at all to speak of. Their government 
land is the local courthouse. But when we hit the West, look at what 
happens. Big blocks of land.
  Now, some people today, I would call them revisionists who like to 
revise history, would like us to believe that the reason the government 
owns this land is that that was to be preserved to the extent that 
human use was to be eliminated, and their goal is to take multiple use 
and get rid of multiple use. One of their goals too is when people want 
you off this land, what is the best way to get you off the land? If 
they cannot get the Congress to go along with it, if they cannot get 
the population to support it, then go for the most important asset that 
you have on that land, and that is the water, which brings us to kind 
of a full circle in our discussion of water.
  It is interesting, because right through here we have something 
called the Continental Divide, and Colorado follows my pointer here as 
it goes down through this way. The Continental Divide, although most of 
us know what that is, but it is very interesting; it is a dynamic of 
nature upon which side of the line we can actually see it in place. The 
Continental Divide, the water on one side goes towards the Atlantic, 
the other on the other side goes towards the Pacific. The Continental 
Divide is really, at those high elevations where the Continental Divide 
is, that is where water is amongst the purest water; and that water is 
very important, not just for human consumption, but actually, a lot of 
that water is important to allow it to flow into the streams so that it 
can flow down and protect our environment. There is lots of multiple 
uses, not just on the land, but multiple uses of the water.
  Now, Colorado begins to emerge in the country as probably one of the 
most critical, if not the most critical State in the Union in regards 
to water. One, as I spoke of earlier, the high mountain ranges and the 
accumulation of water. Colorado provides water for what, 26, 27 States. 
Colorado provides water for other foreign countries. The country of 
Mexico, for example, actually gets water from the State of Colorado 
from the Colorado River, the Colorado River Compact, the compact that 
they made with Mexico. It is interesting how Mexico, down in this area, 
ends up getting water that originates, 70 percent of the water in the 
Colorado River Basin originates in the high Rocky Mountains of 
Colorado. Now, how does Mexico end up getting rights out of the 
Colorado River? Interesting story. Not really the basis of this speech, 
but interesting enough to bring into these comments this evening.

  What happened was, during World War II there was a concern that the 
Japanese would invade Mexico. So the Mexican Government came to the 
United States, and we had a mutual meeting. Mexico did not want the 
Japanese in Mexico. The United States did not want the Japanese right 
next to them in Mexico, so they made an agreement. And the agreement 
was that if the Japanese or the Germans or the axis there, the enemies, 
if they crossed the border or if they attempted an invasion of Mexico, 
the United States would enter Mexico and defend Mexico. They would 
fight for Mexico. They would fight to push them back out of Mexico.
  Now, of course, the Mexican Government seemed to have a little 
leverage, I guess we would say. They seemed to be a little smarter in 
the negotiations. To summarize it, it is accurate to say that the 
Mexicans said, all right, it would be a good idea, United States, for 
you could come down and defend us if we are invaded; but you know, for 
you to come across the borders and come into our country to protect us, 
it really ought to be worth something to you because you do not want 
the Japanese in here either, so why do you not give us a part of the 
Colorado River. So the Colorado River is actually designated for the 
country of Mexico.
  Now, Colorado is the home for four major rivers; four major rivers 
have their head waters in the State of Colorado. We have the Platte 
River, we have the Arkansas River, we have the Rio Grande River, and 
one of the rivers that I am going to focus on today, and that is the 
Colorado River. The Colorado River really is called the Mother of all 
Rivers, the Grand River.
  Let me talk a little about the water climate in the State of 
Colorado. I would remind my colleagues that Colorado again is unique as 
we look at our maps, and the line would be very hard for my colleagues 
to see, but basically, this is the State of Colorado. This is the only 
area of the United States right here, the only area of the United 
States where there is no water that flows into the State for its use. 
Every other State in the Continental United States, every other State 
has water that flows into their State for their use. Colorado is the 
exception.
  Keep in mind, also, my earlier comments. If we drew a line here down 
through Kansas and Missouri out like this, this portion of the country 
right here has 73 or 74 percent of the water in the country. This 
portion of the country right up here has about oh, I do not

[[Page H624]]

know, 13 percent or so of the water is right up in this area. And then 
for the rest of these Western States which consist geographically of 
half the Nation, only 14 percent of the water in the Nation has to 
provide for that massive land area, which makes water storage very 
critical. The Colorado River, that is where, for example, we have 
Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. That is where we get huge hydropower 
facilities.

                              {time}  1915

  Water storage is absolutely critical for all of us. In the East we 
need it for flood control, primarily. In the West we not only need it 
for flood control, but we need it for year-around usage, so we are able 
to store the water when the water is coming down the mountain, because 
most of the months the water is not coming down the mountain in the 
kind of force we need and are able to store it.
  Let me give an idea of our statewide climate. Statewide, Colorado 
gets 16.5 inches of water each year, although that can vary depending 
on population. Down in this part of Colorado near Durango, Colorado, we 
have a pass called Wolf Creek Pass. Twenty-some miles from Wolf Creek, 
it may snow 15 inches of snow a year. Go those few miles up to Wolf 
Creek Pass, we may get 550 inches of snow a year. So the geographic 
nature of the State provides for dramatic differences in the moisture 
and precipitation that follows.
  In Colorado's high altitude, the semi-arid climate, 85 percent of the 
State's precipitation is lost. Eighty-five percent of our water in 
Colorado is lost to evaporation. Why? Because Colorado as a State is 
known as the Sunshine State. In the State of Colorado, we have over 300 
days of sunshine a year, over 300 days of sunshine a year. At that high 
altitude, we have to worry about evaporation. There is not much we can 
do about it, but most of our water that falls in the State of Colorado 
then is evaporated.
  Keep in mind that water, water is the only renewable resource that we 
have. Now, we have resources that we have not captured the energy from, 
for example, the sun. But once the sun ray comes down, if we do not 
capture the energy, the energy disperses and it is gone; a gallon of 
oil, if we burn it up, it is gone.
  But water is a renewable resource. So the key to water is one 
person's waste may be another person's water. What do I mean by that 
statement?
  For example, on the Colorado River, we may have a diversion into an 
irrigation ditch. Somebody may say, well, to help conserve on water we 
ought to line that ditch with concrete so the water does not seep into 
the soil until it gets to the point we want it. That water seepage into 
that irrigation ditch may actually provide somebody else's water for a 
spring.
  Today we do not have the technology, although at some point in the 
future they will have the technology, but today we do not have the 
technology to look underneath the surface and see all of the different 
fingers of water and the connections of water underneath our surface 
that we cannot see above the surface. So our understanding, really, is 
based on the best science that we have.
  That is why we have to be so very careful when we talk about water, 
about where we put water storage or how we impact the water, what 
impact that has throughout the rest of that particular water system.
  Let me say that when I said earlier that our snow pack is so 
important, to give an idea of those few months of snow that we get in 
Colorado, 80 percent of the water, 80 percent of the water in this 
Rocky Mountain area comes from snow. Only 20 percent of the water that 
Colorado gets comes from rain. So we are very, very dependent on that 
snowfall.
  In a year like this in Colorado, we are having a dry year this year, 
and it runs in cycles. We have not been able to time the cycles, we 
have not figured out the cycles, but we know it runs in cycles. In 
Colorado, we have a very dry winter. In fact, some of our snow packs 
are only about 23 percent of normal.
  Right now, it does not bother us because we have all the snow, and 23 
percent is still a lot of snow. But wait until about June or July. All 
of a sudden, Colorado and the States that depend on the Colorado River 
will have a lot of suffering.
  There are cities out there that have no water sources at all except 
massive diversions out of the Colorado River. One of them we know very 
well: Las Vegas, Nevada. Take a look at Las Vegas. At the Bellagio, 
that beautiful water show, that is Colorado River water. The same thing 
with the State of Arizona, same thing with the State of California, 
same thing with the State of New Mexico, same thing with Utah, and the 
same thing with the country of Mexico. A lot of States are very 
dependent on that high snow in those Colorado Rockies.
  Some of these States add to it. For example, the State of Utah, the 
State of New Mexico, they add a little water to the Colorado River 
Basin. But, basically, the State of Colorado puts 70 percent of that 
water into that basin. By the way, of the 70 percent of the water that 
comes from the State of Colorado into the Colorado River Basin, only 25 
percent of it goes back to the people of the State of Colorado. The 
rest of it is utilized in other States.
  In the State of Colorado, as similar to our chart that I was showing 
earlier, 85 percent of the water that we use in Colorado, 85 percent of 
it is used for agricultural purposes.
  Let me just real quickly go over some kind of fun statistics, 
interesting things. Ninety percent of our naturally-occurring lakes in 
Colorado, and we are not a lake State, we do not have massive lakes, 
but the lakes that we do have in Colorado, 89 percent of them that are 
natural are above 9,000 feet. Imagine that, 9,000 feet. That is where 
90 percent of our lakes are.
  Colorado has 13 different streams that we call Clear Creek, to give 
an idea how pure and how good that water is. As I said, Colorado is the 
only State in the Continental U.S. with all major waterways originating 
within its boundaries.
  Water flowing out of the State travels to the Atlantic or Pacific 
Oceans, depending on which side of the Continental Divide it originates 
on. On average, 10,400,000 or 10,500,000 acre feet of water leave the 
State every year. An acre foot is how much water it takes to form an 
acre I think 1 foot high over a 1-year period of time. Most of the 
water that leaves the State of Colorado, about 45 percent of it is in 
the Colorado River Basin.
  And 87 percent of the water in Colorado, when we take a look at 
Colorado, 87 percent of the water in the State is on the western 
portion of the State. Eighty some percent of the population in the 
State of Colorado is on the eastern portion of the State, so we can see 
just because of the dispersement of the population in the State of 
Colorado, most of our population is not located where the water is; 
most of the population is located away from the water.
  Denver, for example, has no water that originates in Denver. It is 
the beneficiary of all that water that runs off the mountains. Or in 
the case of the Continental Divide, Denver, for example, or the cities 
on the eastern portion of the State, have decided to go over on the 
other side of the divide where the water runs this direction and 
redirect the diversion of that water, or the direction of that water, 
so it flows in reverse order and comes back to the cities.
  It is often said that water flows not downhill but flows towards the 
direction of money. That is exactly what has transpired over the years. 
Water has been impacted a great deal from what its original intent was.
  Let me just go over a few other statistics that I think are 
interesting. As I said, water sometimes can be a pretty boring subject; 
but I find it pretty fascinating. Now, all of the Members would be 
pretty interested in water if they turned on the tap tonight when they 
went home, they went to take a shower or cook dinner, and there was no 
water there. Then all of a sudden Members would become real interested 
in it.
  I think tonight the purpose of tonight's comments are to give kind of 
a basic education and talk really where kind of the apex of water in 
the United States is and how critical the State of Colorado is for the 
supply of that water.
  The largest reservoir that we have in the State of Colorado is the 
Blue Mesa. The amount of water, for example, throughout the country in 
the public water systems, if we have a city water system, do Members 
know what percentage of that is actually used to cook

[[Page H625]]

and drink? About 1 percent of the city water system. The rest of it is 
used for all of the other needs one has with water. I thought that was 
a pretty interesting statistic.
  Kentucky bluegrass uses 18 gallons of water per square foot. I do not 
have the actual statistic here, but it is amazing how many thousands of 
gallons of water are necessary for just one oak tree, for example. We 
do not even envision the huge quantity of water that is necessary to 
support one of those big cottonwood trees or a great big oak tree.
  Water and its recirculation through our society, and its recycling, 
and I do not mean man-made recycling, I mean recycling by nature, is 
really a feat, and pretty amazing, just to the extent that we know. My 
guess is that we have only tapped a small knowledge of how our water 
system in this Nation works.
  At any rate, back to my points, here. The Platte River was named, 
which of course ``platte'' means ``flat,'' and the water that is used 
in the Platte River was first used, of course, by the Native Americans. 
One of the interesting things that the Native Americans used early on 
in the State of Colorado were the hot springs located in Glenwood 
Springs, Colorado.
  Some may have been to Glenwood Springs. It is a community near Aspen, 
Colorado. Actually, it is my birth home. But there we have hot springs, 
and I think the water there comes in at about 180 degrees Fahrenheit. 
The spring I think puts between 2 million or 6 million gallons a day of 
water at 180 degrees that comes out of the springs. We use it. We have 
a huge pool there. Anybody who has been to Glenwood Springs knows 
exactly what I am talking about.
  The Indians used to use that because they thought it was the gods 
that put it there for health care. We later used it, in fact the Navy 
used it in World War II for recuperation of its wounded sailors. They 
would ship them from the oceans into the middle of the country for 
recovery in Glenwood Springs with the hot waters.
  We have a lot of interesting things about the streams that we have in 
Colorado. We have about 2,000 lakes in Colorado. That seems like a lot, 
but our lakes are not very big. Our lakes really, in proportion, if we 
take a look at Minnesota or some of these States that really are States 
with huge lakes, we do not have much comparison there.
  But within the boundaries of Colorado, within the four corners of 
that State, we have over 9,000 miles of streams, 9,000 miles of 
streams. So we know we have the highest elevation in the country in 
Colorado with the Rocky Mountains. We have by far the largest number of 
mountains over 14,000 feet; and by far the largest number of mountains 
over 13,000 feet are in Colorado.
  Now, we know between all of these mountains, and coming down all of 
those mountains, we have 9,000 miles of streams that go through and 
circulate that water. It is pretty interesting when we take a look at 
the different diversions that we have.
  We have 48 million people in the United States that divert their 
water off wells. That is below-surface water. The rest of the people in 
the country depend on surface water. Go back to the Colorado River 
Basin, here. That river kind of goes like my pointer, down through 
here, out like this, out into here, and then kind of like that, and out 
into the country of Mexico.
  It is incredible to take a look, and I think I have a chart here. 
Hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power from the Colorado River, 
again, coming back to the Colorado River, where our focus is, 
hydropower from the Colorado River keeps the lights burning in many 
parts of the West, including Phoenix, Arizona, pictured here. Phoenix 
also obtains water from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona 
Project canals.
  There is Phoenix, Las Vegas, and all of those small communities, and 
many of the cities in California. The Colorado River, we do not really 
realize the importance of that water, the importance of it not only for 
the human population, not only for the agricultural population, not 
only for the energy needs, but for the environment, as well.
  The more we know about water, the more deep our appreciation becomes 
for that miracle matter that the good Lord gave for us to use.
  Let me kind of leave the charts here for a minute and wrap up my 
comments. I am going to do a series of speeches to my colleagues about 
the resources, the natural resources, we have over there. We have lots 
of debates on this House floor in regard to natural resource issues, in 
regard to the environment, in regard to energy and conservation of 
energy.
  I am going to give a number of different speeches to my colleagues, 
not just focusing entirely on natural resources, but talking about the 
energy demands that we have in this country, the future for alternative 
energy that we have in this country, the necessity for conservation of 
energy that we have in this country; the need to protect our 
environment, protect it in such a way that it is balanced; the 
importance of multiple use on our public lands.
  I intend to have a very thorough discussion here on public lands. In 
the East, because they do not have any government lands to speak of, 
many people do not know what public lands are. I do not hold that 
critically. I am not saying that critically. I am just saying that they 
do not deal with them.
  In the West, for example, in my district, I have a huge congressional 
district. I probably have approximately 120 different communities, and 
119 of those 120 communities are completely surrounded by public lands. 
In other words, everything we do in our communities is totally 
dependent upon the government's lands. For our water that comes across 
it, our water that is stored upon it, our water that originates on it, 
our power lines, our highways, our recreation areas, our agriculture, 
we are totally dependent on that.

                              {time}  1930

  In the East, you do not have that handicap. In the West, it is in 
fact a handicap; and I intend to spend a few moments with you 
discussing that, in future moments, when we are here together on the 
floor. My purpose here tonight is to kind of break the ice, you might 
say, coming back to water, to talk a little about water.
  If you ever have a moment to go to Denver, Colorado, and you go 
through the State Capitol there, you will find in their rotunda, every 
painting in that rotunda, in their murals somewhere in that painting 
has the subject of water, whether it is an irrigation canal, whether it 
is somebody fishing, whether it is animals drinking from the stream. 
Water is a critical, critical factor. In fact, the State of Colorado, 
as I said earlier, is the apex in this country. Four major rivers have 
their headwaters there. It is the mother of rivers. It is an 
interesting subject.
  I appreciate the moments I have been able to spend with you this 
evening.

                          ____________________