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<br />(0 <br />,':.) <br />00 <br />,-1 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />springs are generally of better quality than the wells, with <br />TDS from 300 to 700 mg/L. <br /> <br />WATER DEVELOPMENT <br /> <br />At the present time approximately 14,720 acres in the area <br />are being irrigated, and a small amount of land is being dry <br />farmed on higher areas above existing irrigation facilities <br />or where water is in short supply. Because of inadequate <br />irrigation supplies, less than half of the arable land is <br />irrigated. The average annual diversion for the <br />14,720 acres of irrigated land is 24,300 acre-feet, or <br />1.65 acre-feet per acre and is nearly all 1 imited to the <br />early part of the season when streamflows are high. The <br />owners of low priority rights divert excessively during the <br />spring runoff period in hopes of building up soil moisture <br />before being cut back by higher priorities when the streams <br />begin to recede. <br /> <br />Few storage facil ities have been constructed to compensate <br />for periods of low streamflow. Several privately owned <br />reservoirs exist on the headwaters of Battlement Creek, but <br />their total capacity is less than 600 acre-feet. <br /> <br />The town of Rifle obtains most of its water from Beaver <br />Creek but supplements that source by pumping from the <br />Colorado River. In the drought year of 1977, Beaver Creek <br />completely failed in the month of June, making it necessary <br />to depend entirely on the Colorado River. The city uses the <br />tributary water when possible rather than incur the high <br />cost of pumping and treating the poor quality Colorado River <br />water. <br /> <br />A-9 <br />