[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 27 (Thursday, February 13, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E227-E228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 COMMEMORATING THE ONE-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SALT RIVER PROJECT

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. RICK RENZI

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 12, 2003

  Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, in the sun-soaked regions of Arizona, the 
most precious natural resource is not gold, nor is it silver. It is a 
priceless commodity, whose worth is not determined by its luster or 
quality, but by its volume and quantity. Even the world's most talented 
scientists are unable to replicate it, and it cannot be manufactured by 
machine.
  It is water that sustains us and shapes our future to come. Without 
this gift of life, in the form of summer monsoon rain and high-mountain 
snowmelt, our lands would be uninhabitable and our lives impossible.
  The Salt River Valley, which runs from eastern through central 
Arizona, is a main artery that carries within it the life-blood of the 
state. More than 2000 years ago, its lush banks were the home of the 
first people of Arizona, the Hohokam, who created an intricate network 
of irrigation canals that gave life to their communities.

[[Page E228]]

  Today, after countless natural cycles of alternating seasonal drought 
and flood, life, death and renewal, the early ingenuity of the Hohokam 
people lives on through the vision of the founders and 4,300 employees 
of the Salt River Project, the largest provider of surface water in 
Arizona and the nation's third-largest public power utility.
  The Salt River Project began in 1903 when an association of 
landowners in the Phoenix area, frustrated by their inability to manage 
the water supply for their crops and cattle, incorporated their 
properties as collateral toward a federal loan under the National 
Reclamation Act. This community corporation led to the construction of 
the Theodore Roosevelt Dam, the largest structure of its day, and the 
foundation for a prosperous local economy and municipal infrastructure 
that was able to control the source and supply of its most valuable 
natural commodity.
  In the century following this initial project, the focus and scope of 
the Salt River Project has grown to include a number of major power 
plants and generating facilities in Arizona and the Southwest that use 
thermal, hydroelectric and nuclear reaction for power production. Every 
day, Salt River Project's modern network of dams and power generating 
plants deliver water to more than one million residents and serve 
electricity to more than 780,000 customers at some of the lowest prices 
among major utilities in the Southwest, according to the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission. This attention to customer needs has earned Salt 
River Project accolades inside and outside of the energy and water 
industry.
  As a result of the region's continuing capacity for development and 
efficient water management, census figures have shown Arizona's growth 
rate to be one of the fastest in the nation, with a 40 percent increase 
in population during the 1990's. The prosperity and quality of life 
that is presently enjoyed by every citizen of the great state of 
Arizona, is a testament to the vision of the founders of the Salt River 
Project and a legacy that has endured for the past one hundred years 
through the actions of its current and past employees.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Salt River Project on 
the hundredth anniversary of its founding and to honor those 
individuals who have participated in bringing the precious gift of 
water to our desert environment.

                          ____________________