PROJ01825

• Contract/PO #: FS0061FX
• Contractor Name: Craig, City of
• Contract Type: Miscellaneous
• Water District: 0
• Loan Projects - Doc Type: Approval Letter

-; '.

RECE\VED
NO~ '6 1998
ColOradO Water. ' .
. conservation ~~. '

':300 West Fburth Street: Craig. C;olorado 81629 [phone]
. . FAX (9?P) 824-6539

, ,."

. . ~ : .

November 9,1998

Mr. William P. Stanton, P.E.
Chief, Project Planning and Construction Section
Colorado Water Conservation Board
721 Centennial Building
1313 Sherman Street
Denver, CO 80203

Subject: Elkhead Dam/Reservoir

Dear Bill:

This letter is in response to your Jetter to Craig Mayor Robert Quillen dated October 27,
1998, and your subsequent telephone conversation with Ayres Associates, our
consulting engineer, regarding the status of this project. As Doug Laiho mentioned to
you on the phone, despite the passage of 12 years with only modest progress, the
Elkhead Dam/Reservoir improvements project is again very active. Let me begin with
the brief project history recap you requested and conclude with a summary of the
current project status and our request to not deauthorize the subject loan at this time.

Elkhead Dam/Reservoir was construc:ted in 1974 as a cooperative undertaking of the
Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) and the "Yampa Participants" as a multiple purpose
reservoir. DOW owns and has operation/maintenance responsibility for the project. In
1979 the National Dam Safety Program determined that the dam had a hydraulically
inadequate spillway. (Even to the present day, solving the inadequate spillway issue
has been an integral part of the many subsequent studies, and it has neither been
resolved nor enforcement action taken to 'achieve compliance.) Several
enlargemenVrehabilitation studies were conducted between 1979 and 1990. In 1985 .
plans and specifications were prepared for a dam raise and auxiliary spillway
construction; these documents were submitted for approval to the Colorado Office of the
State Engineer (OSE). It was at about this time that the Colorado Water Conservation
Board (CWCB) loan request was made, presumably to assist with the construction of
the project under review. We have not been able to ascertain what the results of the
review process were (nor have we ever found copies of the plans and specifications
which were submitted for review), and the designed project never proceeded to
construction for an unknown reason..

In 1990, the City of Craig entered into an agreement with the DOW to acquire the
project in five years. The agreement was accompanied by a supplemental agreement
between the City, the DOW, and the Yampa Participants which describes the