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Show CLIFF MEMMOTT, Editor Casuaily Observing ... MORE UNITY IS NEEDED in the Uintah Basin, is a comment com-ment actively heard as we strive to achieve the things needed for our future development. . . This fact is not only important in fighting for the Upper Colorado River Project, but it is important im-portant in working for better roads, better schools, etc. . .Unity is something often preached from church pulpits and at civic gatherings It is stressed editorially by newspapers and is something that can come only by young and old alike working together. ARE WE SUCCEEDING ALONG THIS LINE is a question I asked myself the other night as I sat in a basketball tournament tourna-ment where two schools from the Basin were entered seeking a place in the state "B" tourney now under way at Provo. The Region Five play-off started with Union High playing Mon-ticello Mon-ticello High. As soon as the Cougars took the floor it became evident that at least two Basin High Schools were enthusiastically enthusiastic-ally rooting for Union's loss to a team severaj hundred miles away. . . Of course that's just exercising our free agency given us by living in America But it did irk me no little to see our next door neighbors so ambitious about seeing the Cougars lose a chance to enter the state tournament. . . In my opinion it showed poor judgment for coaches, students and parents from our neighboring communitites to so openly protest the advancement ad-vancement of a fine basketball team into the state tournament. We have heard student body presidents and principals urge basketball fans all year to display high sportsmanship ideals something I heartily approve. Generally I believe a good job has been one, and hasten to compliment all the people, students and adults, on this achievement . . I was also pleased that after af-ter Union. won their game and the other Basin school took the floor, all Roosevelt, including the student body from Union, - were rooting for the local team. I'M SURE THOSE WHO FAILED to support the Cougars in their ball game did it in the spirit of school rivalry, and not that they didn't want to see Union win and go to the state tournament. At least that's what I'm going to believe and at the same time offer a suggestion that maybe school principals, faculty members and student leaders, should sell Uintah Basin Unity, on a student level, to the people in their communities. Thunder Over Echo Park . . . An editorial in the Christian Science Monitor, January 27th has receive so many favorable comments from proponents of the Colorado River Project that we are running it so . all our subscribers might read it, as follows: - - The water resources of the Colorado River's Upper Basin must be developed. Here is an objective against which there is no open opposition of which we have knowledge. These resources must be developed even if it should prove necessary to build dams at Echo Park and Split Mountain, both of which lie within the boundaries of Dinosaur National Monument. Monu-ment. Those who argue seriously against that postulate are also few. But as to whether it is necessary to invade a long-established national preserve is a question being hotly disputed. Those who back the Reclamation Bureau's proposed dams at Echo Park and Split Mountain say the whole Upper Basin development depends upon the first of these; that no alternative alterna-tive site put forward would do; and that conservationist opponents op-ponents are being used by Lower Basin interests which scheme to get more than their share of the water. They assert the dinosaur fossil deposits would not be touched (which is true);, that the scenery of the monument is equaled at several other locations (true also); and that the dam would enhance it, anyway (a matter of opinion). Somehow, much of the dispute over engineering has focused on loss from evaporation. After numerous revisions downward, the Bureau of Reclamation appears to be standing on an estimate esti-mate of 120,000 acre feet per year greater loss at the Dewey site (the next best alternative, they say) than at Echo Park. Opponents argue that Echo Park is but one of several plans that would invade national preserves, and that a breach here would set a bad precedent. They declare there are acceptable ' even better alternatives at sites already approved for later dams. As for evaporation, they point to a series of errors that have reduced the bureau's hypothetical estimates of Echo Park's superiority from an original 350,000 to 25,000 acre feet annually an-nually either figure out of a total loss of over a million. Their engineers point out that a variance in the estimates of but one mile per hour annual average wind velocity would make a difference dif-ference of 100,000 acre feet in the loss figure. Some organizations, no doubt, do favor California's interest in the Lower Basin. But we find it hard to believe that the National Na-tional Parks Association and the National Audubon Society or many members of the Sierra Club would be taken in as stooges by any one regional cause. Estimate of future evaporation from reservoirs yet unbuilt seems to be so "iffy" a task that we would dislike to see this point given as much weight in the decision as it has had in the controversy. Finally, we do not believe a dam at Echo Park would des- -troy the national park system. But unquestionably the precedent would render more vulnerable the boundaries of these hard-won areas. - We trust both Congress and the President will try to hear above the present thundering reverberations from Echo Park and make their decision on the broadest possible basis of fact. -(Vernal Express) v E v ' t A man never shows his own character so plainly as by the way he portrays another's. J. P. Ritcher. " It's not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas. Dostoyevsky - Happiness is not the end of life; character is. H. W. Beecher 30 |