WSP11765

• File Number: 8200.200
• Description: Colorado River-Colorado River Basin-Colorado River Basin Hydrology
• State: CO
• Date: 6/27/1950
• Author: Silmon Smith
• Title: Silmon Smiths Colorado River Analysis -- Analysis of Colorados Share of Colorado River and Its Use Consumptive Present and Potential
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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It will be remembered that the experimental plant is located on the U. S.
Naval Shale Fuel Reserve, (any failure to properly report Mr. Guthrie is
the fault of the compiler and not Mr. Guthrie). 1ir. Guthrie made no .
effort to estimate the required consumption of water by incidental
activities which would normally accompany such a development and the
figure of 32,000 acre feet has been added to his estimated minimum peace
time operation to cover that factor, making an even 300,000 acre feet
estimate.

Note 16. There will be of necessity reservoirs serving the presently authorized
diversion projects and also reservoirs in western Colorado for use of
Irrigation and industry in addition to the main stem impounding reservoirs
and from all of these there will be evaporation depending in amount upon
their location. It is impossible to definitely arrive at this amount and
this figure has been arbitrarily adopted as a minimum.

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Note 17. There remains in the Colorado River for consumptive use by Colorado
389,340 acre feet of water. Referring back to items 10, 11 and 12 where
no sufficient study has been made, it is reasonable to assume that they
are 39% too small and if it shall later be determined that such is a
fact, as has already been determined on the Gunnison and Colorado (above
Grand Junction), then there will be required to complete the irrigation
program in Western Colorado 216,278 acre feet of water which must be sub-
tracted from the 389,340 acre feet, leaving 173,062 acre feet for all
other purposes, and unless the flow of the Colorado River gets up to the
long term average, this will be further reduced by an additional Mexican
Treaty burden. Whatever amount may remain, whether it be 389,340 or
173,062 acre feet must cover all industrial uses, including metal mining,
recovery of atomic energy strategic materials, hydrogenation of coal, and
an increase in the oil shale recovery program which might ensue in the
event of war. The exact requirements for these purposes are of course,
at this time not possible of exact determination.

It is apparent from the Summary Report to the United States Bureau
of ~lines by the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, submitted in May
1949, that the recovery of synthetic fuel values in Western Colorado from
shale and coal will be measured by the water available for treatment and
not by the amount of shale and coal which will not be exhausted in several
hundred years.

On Page 10 of the Bureau's 1946 Report on the Colorado River, House
Document 419, appears the follovlin,': "Enormous beds of bituminous and
subbituminous coal within the basin (of Colorado River) in Eastern Utah,
Southern Wyoming and Western Colorado are estimated to contain nearly one-
fourth of all the coal reserves in the United States. !.lines in these
areas now supply most of the coal requirements in the Rocky Mountain and
Pacific Coast areas".

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On Page 71 of the same House Document 419 prepared by the Bureau of
Reclamation in 1946 appears the following language: "The Colorado River
Basin is a part of America's frontier. ' It is, perhaps, as little de-
veloped as any comparable area in the United States. Yet it is known
that here lie buried one-sixth of the entire world's coal reserves, bil-
lions of barrels of oil in shale and sand (equivalent to many times the

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