WSP08407

• File Number: 8270.100
• Description: Colorado River Basin Water Quality/Salinity -- Misc Water Quality
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 10/1/1983
• Title: Colorado River Water Quality Improvement Program - Big Sandy River Unit - Draft Planning Report/Advance Draft Environmental Impact Statement - October 1983
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: EIS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

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result, it appears the plan could not be implemented under present con-

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ditions, since current legislative constraints preclude State payment

of OM&R costs.

Previoua Work by Reclamation

The Bureau of Reclamation began studying the salt loading mecha-

nisms along the Big Sandy River in 1972. Early investigations included

establishment of a network of water quality sampling stations along the

river and its tributaries. A contract was awarded to the University of

Wyoming to investigate the possibility of desalting the saline water by

atmospheric freezing.

Although the tests did demonstrate that salts

could be separated from the water by freezing, the program was only a

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partial success. The full potential of the method was not achieved due

to economic, time, and climatic limitations.

Later, a contract was

awarded to drill a deep test well into the underlying freshwater aquifer

to determine if reducing the high pressure in that aquifer, which was

believed to be causing water to flow upward through the shale forma-

tions, would stop the flow in the seeps.

Further drilling, however,

showed that the water emerging from the seeps was moving down slope

through shallow aquifers usually less than 300 feet deep. By 1978, a

grid of 98 wells had been drilled and pump-tested.

All previous

Reclamation studies, except for the atmospheric freezing, have been con-

fined to the saline seeps and to the location of their recharge source.

Water system improvements on the Eden Project were not investigated

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by Reclamation because a comprehensive seepage study had already been

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