43 U.S.C. § 620 — Upper Colorado River Basin; purpose of development of water resources; initial units; construction of Wayne N. Aspinall unit contingent upon certification; participating projects; Rainbow Bridge National Monument

In order to initiate the comprehensive development of the water resources of the Upper Colorado River Basin, for the purposes, among others, of regulating the flow of the Colorado River, storing water for beneficial consumptive use, making it possible for the States of the Upper Basin to utilize, consistently with the provisions of the Colorado River Compact, the apportionments made to and among them in the Colorado River Compact and the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact^*, respectively, providing for the reclamation of arid and semiarid land, for the control of floods, and for the generation of hydroelectric power, as an incident of the foregoing purposes, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized (1) to construct, operate, and maintain the following initial units of the Colorado River storage project, consisting of dams, reservoirs, powerplants, transmission facilities and appurtenant works: Wayne N. Aspinall, Flaming Gorge, Navajo (dam and reservoir only), and Glen Canyon: Provided, That the Wayne N. Aspinall Dam shall be constructed to a height which will impound not less than nine hundred and forty thousand acre-feet of water or will create a reservoir of such greater capacity as can be obtained by a high waterline located at seven thousand five hundred and twenty feet above mean sea level, and that construction thereof shall not be undertaken until the Secretary has, on the basis of further engineering and economic investigations, reexamined the economic justification of such unit and, accompanied by appropriate documentation in the form of a supplemental report, has certified to the Congress and to the President that, in his judgment, the benefits of such unit will exceed its costs; and (2) to construct, operate, and maintain the following additional reclamation projects (including power-generating and transmission facilities related thereto), hereinafter referred to as participating projects: Central Utah (initial phase and the Uintah unit), San Juan-Chama (initial stage), Emery County, Florida, Hammond, La Barge, Lyman, Navajo Indian, Paonia (including the Minnesota unit, a dam and reservoir on Muddy Creek just above its confluence with the North Fork of the Gunnison River, and other necessary works), Animas-La Plata, Dolores, Dallas Creek, West Divide, San Miguel, Seedskadee, Savery-Pot Hook, Bostwick Park, Fruitland Mesa, the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, Silt and Smith Fork: Provided further, That as part of the Glen Canyon Unit the Secretary of the Interior shall take adequate protective measures to preclude impairment of the Rainbow Bridge National Monument.