222 Broader Bases for Choice: The Next Key Move 



of recreation. An important element which has been lacking is a gen- 

 eral examination of national aims within the range of politically pos- 

 sible means of achieving them and of the probable impacts of each 

 possible program. 



Let me give an example. No area of resources development has 

 been more subject to bitter dispute in recent years than the Upper 

 Colorado. The bloody details of the battle of Echo Park and of the 

 frontier skirmishes along the downstream state lines need not be re- 

 counted. A decision was reached by the Congress, as befits all such 

 decisions, in a thoroughly political atmosphere. 



That is where and how the decision should be made under our form 

 of government. The instruments of decision making were available: 

 the Congress, the contending federal agencies, an Executive Office and 

 the contentious interest groups. What was lacking was a suitable basis 

 for choice. The basis actually offered was chiefly a plan from the 

 Bureau of Reclamation for development of water for irrigation and 

 electric power, supplemented by critical declarations from other agen- 

 cies. The analysis offered in support of the plan did not venture an 

 estimate of the probable effects of the irrigation and power develop- 

 ment upon the lives and regional organization of the people of the 

 area. It was more narrowly directed toward the reimbursability of the 

 investment and the market for power and irrigation water, recognizing 

 but not attempting to measure the full implications of such outputs for 

 the character and distribution of economic activity. Possible alterna- 

 tives for use of water, such as in industrial development which might 

 support much greater and more stable population growth, were not 

 examined in detail. There was no broad assessment of the potentiali- 

 ties of the basin for recreational use; rather, attention soon focused 

 upon the threatened impairment of one recreational facility, the Dino- 

 saur National Monument. There still was no comprehensive appraisal 

 of the needs to improve the agricultural productive plant of the nation 

 and of the relative effectiveness of the many means, including irriga- 

 tion, to such improvement. Nor, in fact, were there any estimates of 

 the consequences of possible alternative choices for public investment 

 in land, water, minerals, and transport in the Upper Colorado. 



As the Upper Colorado plan was presented to the Congress the 

 choice was essentially to accept it, to accept it with reservations, or to 



