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May 1970 and June 1969 in Minturn and Dowd, high water may have also occurred in Red Cliff (Reference 13). Flooding along the streams in the Town of Vail usually occurs from May through August. Floods may be caused by rainfall or snowmelt either alone or in combination. Few definitive data regarding past flooding are available for the Town of Vail since its development in the early 1960s. However, on June 25, 1978, some minor damage occurred at the Racquet Club near Bighorn Creek as a result of mud and debris flow. 2.4 Flood Protection Measures The Ruedi Dam affects the flow of the Roaring Fork River. Located on the Fryingpan River approximately 17 miles east of Basalt within Eagle County, the Ruedi Dam is part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project to divert water from the Colorado River Basin to the Arkansas River Basin. The Ruedi Reservoir was constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and made operational in May 1968. The dam was designed for an inflow design flood of 17,500 cfs at a I5-day volume of 100,000 acre-feet. The probable maximum discharge is 5,540 cfs from the spillway and 1,810 cfs from the outlet structure. The total probable maximum discharge from the outlet structure and spillway is 7,350 cfs, which approximates the 500-year flood in the Town of Basalt. Ruedi Reservoir has a total capacity of 102,373 acre-feet at the spillway and provides replacement water for out-of-priority depletions to the Colorado River by the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, as well as water for West Slope agricultural, municipal, and industrial uses on a contractual basis. The reservoir is also operated for recreation and wildlife habitat, and indirectly for flood control. Permanently assigned flood-control storage in Ruedi Reservoir could not be economically justified at the time of construction. However, annual storage of snowmelt runoff indirectly provides the objective of flood control and can appreciably reduce the downstream flood menace in the Fryingpan, Roaring Fork, and Colorado Rivers. If the reservoir is operated carefully for flood control by evacuation of storage before forecast heavy inflow, complete control of most snowmelt floods in the reservoir can be attained. A possibility still exists of rare extreme floods that exceed the Ruedi Reservoir's capacity to control. With the exception of these extreme events, the operation of Ruedi Reservoir reduces and stabilizes flows downstream of the dam. By providing more uniform flows, fish habitat can be established to provide better fishing conditions in the early months of the fishing season. According to the Annual Operation Plans of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project for Water Year 1995-96 (Reference 6), the following describes the operation of Ruedi Reservoir during the 1995 flood event: Releases were increased throughout June to delay the filling of the Reservoir beyond the customary date of July I to avoid a spill of the reservoir caused by continuing precipitation on an unusually late occurring snowpack. The peak average daily inflow of 1,796 cfs occurred on June 17, 1995. The Reservoir filled to the crest of the spillway on July 11, 1995. Outlet works releases were reduced, forcing [the water level to rise above the overflow spillway], and the flow below the Reservoir was maintained below the maximum safe channel 15