Damming Grand Canyon: The 1923 USGS Colorado River Expedition

During the first few decades of the 20th century, attention was keenly focused on development of water resources of the Colorado River. Two competing federal agencies sought to promulgate their plans. One, the U.S. Reclamation Service (which became Bureau of Reclamation), proposed a single large dam at Boulder Canyon, and the other, the U.S. Geological Survey, proposed a comprehensive water-development plan featuring numerous dams that would have minimized evaporation. The story of this competition, particularly the USGS attempts to study the river corridor and promote its water-development plan, leads into the current state of affairs where water allocation and availability appear to be diverging.