The water system of the Ute Conservancy District was virtually completed by late 1964 and began to supply water to rural residents of Grand Valley between the towns of Palisade and Mack through a vast network of pipelines. The water is obtained from surface sources on the north flank of Grand Mesa east of the valley and is brought to the valley via a pipeline down the valley of Plateau Creek. Use of the new water has reduced the draft on many of the artesian wells. The reduced draft has locally arrested the decline in the artesian head or has actually allowed some recovery in head. In order of their importance and productivity the water-bearing sandstones are the Entrada, the Wingate, and local sandstone lenses in the lower part (Salt Wash Member) of the Morrison Formation (fig. 7). In a few places small flows or yields are obtained from wells that tap the Dakota Sandstone and underlying Burro Canyon Formation, but inasmuch as the Dakota contains some marine sandstones from which all the salt seemingly has not yet been flushed out, the water from most of these wells is brackish or salty. As we will see on the trip “From Grand Junction through The Redlands to the West Entrance of the Monument,” pages 88-95, in and near the Monument these sandstones look bone dry, so how can they supply water to artesian wells? They are indeed dry in all the cliff exposures, but as will be noted later when the bending and breaking of the rocks are discussed (p. 64-71), erosion has exposed the upturned sandstones so that they may take in water from the many small streams that drain the Monument and adjacent areas for short periods after summer thundershowers or during spring thaws. The water moves slowly down the dipping sandstones and becomes trapped under pressure beneath overlying beds of siltstone or mudstone—materials that are nearly impervious. Geographic Setting Geologists and geographers have divided the United States into many provinces, each of which has distinctive geologic and topographic characteristics that set it apart from the others. Colorado National Monument is in the northeastern part of the Canyon Lands section of the Colorado Plateau Province—a province that contains 15 national parks and monuments, about 3 times as many as any other province. This province, hereinafter referred to simply as the Colorado Plateau, or the Plateau, covers some 150,000 square miles and extends from Rifle, Colo., at the northeast to a little beyond Flagstaff, Ariz., at the southwest, and from Cedar City, Utah, at the west nearly to Albuquerque, N. Mex., at the southeast. This scenic province consists of high plateaus generally ranging in altitude from 4,500 feet to more than 7,000 feet, which are deeply and intricately dissected by literally thousands of canyons.