WSP08431

• File Number: 8131.400
• Description: Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 8/11/1966
• Author: SEWCD
• Title: Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors - August 11 1966
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Board Memo

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The hard, clear facts of the water business used by this District since itls inception
in 1958 should be made known and understandable to all people in the District. Because
at stake and up for grabs, are the rights of use to public waters in the Arkansas River
in Colorado. In behalf of the other 300.000 water users living in this Valley whose
use of water is guaranteed by the Constitution of Colorado. this District Board admits
as its main responsibility the reporting of both accomplishments and costs.

We are charged with seeing that they know their water rights in the Fryingpan Project.
How much of their money it took to buy it, and why it must now be defended. Rights to
water to most of the District's people mean a glass of water, green lawns, wash and
bath days, vegetables in the pot, beef on the table~ milk in the pitcher, jobs~ products,
pro~perity, fishing, boating, and freedom. OUter of the District's people on farms and
ranches~ employ water rights to many other values of highest importance in their way
of life which are directly related to those rights of the people living in towns and cities.
But rights of water use to both are not obtained or sustained in yield~ and forever
present, without costs. Conservation, constant management. resource, acquisition,
development, investigation, research, and re'Bource protection do not come for free.
We have been advise~ that the basic natural resources of this Valley must provide an
economy for two million people early in the next Century. Be that as it may, the
Board's immediate concern is supplying and protecting the needs of the 300,000 water
USers of the present. We realize that the one limiting factor to this Valley's growth
is it1s water supply. We know that one acre foot of water will supply a family of four,
and their water needs for one year. We report that the Fryingpan Project water if
used for families alone would be sufficient water for 280,000 new Valley people~ not
yet arrived. We also report that this is not all this Board bougbt in the Repayment
Contract for the Fryingpan, with the monies of the District's peoples. The total
supply of water purchased by the Project by import, regulation, flood control, and
winter water storage annually will amount to 185,000 acre feet. Convert this to
people or crops or a combination of both and surely even the caustic critics can see
the tremendous values in the Fryingpan Arkansas Pl"oject waters.

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All the people must have water to drink and water to produce their foods as well. In
the fryingpan is extra or supplemental water for half supplied crops, livestock feeds,
flood control and regulatory storage. industrial and recreational water mingled with
water for domestic priority needs. In regards to costs, evaluate now, the true worth
of such waters. Then compute it's value in perpetuity. It has been stated that water
and food will purchase even gold. The product and plant of the Fryingpan Project will
be bought and paid for by the people of the District and with their money. The pur-
chasing agent has bee"n the District Board, the majority of whom feel that it is worth
buying and defending at all costs. The Board is also fully aware that the overall
campaign and crusade of the Fryingpan Project cost more than dollars.

Some thirty five years ago the Project was but a vision and dream of a hundred or
more dedicated people. They began this water projection in a voluntary organization
called the Southeastern Colorado Water Development Association. Over the years
they invested over $300, 000 of private pocket money. spent untold hours and overtime
without compensation, gave of themselves unstintedly, in order that the future citizens
of their Valley might have a better way of life, through a drink of water. They knew
the level of a total economy of any area in the arid Southwest could only rise as high
as it's level of available water supplies. Their organization was the mothe.r of this
Conservancy District. These men and women worked unceasingly toward the objective
of the Federal authorization of the Fryingpan. They barred no holds~ spared no words.
or expense. No group action of our time was more intense or forthright in purpose.
Yet they did not succeed. Their valiant efforts down through the years did reveal
however, the absolute necessity of an essential water tool, a Conservancy District,
a legal water entity, with statue and stature in water matters, properly and equitably
financed by those it would benefit most, this was the instrument to carryon what they
had begun.

Among those who fought alongside the Fryingpan pioneers was Charles H. Boustead.