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<br />70
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<br />COLORADO MAGAZINE
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<br />Co.,) mation Buteau engineers, had completed a report with a West
<br />00 Slope land classification and the inclusion of a proposal for Green
<br />Mountain as a replacement reservoir. We were now getting to
<br />understand each other's viewpoint. A follow-up meeting was held
<br />on March 6, 1937.
<br />On February 3, 1937, Preston's engineering report was made
<br />to the Secretary of the Interior, in which he detailed the proposed
<br />project and recommended its authorization. In early June the
<br />situation was getting acute in Congress, with hot weather coming
<br />on and chances of appropriation becoming precarious. The East
<br />Slope conceded a great deal more to get the stipulation for the
<br />150,000-acre foot Green Mountain Reservoir at no cost to the
<br />West Slope beneficiaries, and agreed it must be completed before
<br />East Slope diversion. Committeemen who, at Washington, signed
<br />that stipulation were Silmon Smith, Clifford Stone and A. C.
<br />Sudan for the West Slope Protective Association, and Charles Han-
<br />sen, Thomas A. Nixon and Moses E. Smith for Northern Colorado
<br />Water Users Association. Thereupon Ed 'Paylor, chairman of the
<br />powerful House ApprolJriations Committee, gave the $900,000.00
<br />first construction appropriation the" go ahead." Reclamation Com-
<br />missioner John C. Page and engineers, Porter C. Preston and Frank
<br />Merriel, helped in breaking the log-jam which was holding up the
<br />Congressional authorization.
<br />A special article should be written about the engineers of the
<br />Bureau of Reclamation, who have been our allies and builders-
<br />such men as Ray Walter, S. O. Harper, L. N. McClellan, W. E.
<br />Blomgren, Avery Batson and J. H. Knights. Tribute also should be
<br />paid to the devoted construction engineers-R. F. Walter, Jr.,
<br />Cleves Howell and Porter Preston.
<br />The contract with the United States, formulated in the late
<br />fall of 1937 and early months of 1938, was voted by the taxpayers
<br />on June 28, 1938, by a 19 to 1 ratio. Its many details were developed
<br />with Reclamation Counsel J. A. Alexander in a series of drafting
<br />meetings held in Denver from January to April.
<br />Inclusion of a $25,000,000.00 limitation as the maximum cost
<br />to be contributed from agriculture was obtained in May, 1938, at
<br />Washington. With World War II starting in Ethiopia then, how-
<br />ever, our farmers refused to sign a blank check.
<br />The contract negotiation committee comprised: Hansen, Dille,
<br />Nixon, Schey, W. E. Letford, W. A. Carlson, Robert Benson, Moses
<br />E. Smith, Charles M. Rolfson and myself. Charles Hansen, Ray
<br />Lanyon and Moses E. Smith were effective in the May, 1938, Wash-
<br />ington limitation and construction contract acceptance.
<br />Petitions, with taxpayer signatures obtained in the thousands,
<br />to create the district were filed in July,-1937, in Weld County
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