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<br />The Upper Basin: Failure and Success <br /> <br />The Blot or.. the Bureau's Record <br /> <br />As mentioned earlier, the rest of the basin was not idle <br />in the development of their water resources. One unique p~an <br />was attempted by a group of fruit growers of Colorado's rich <br />Uncompaghre Valley in the late 1800's. <br />Egged on by railroad land agents, the valley had beerr <br />over-populated by farm families who tried to cultivated a hun- <br />dred thousand acres of farmland, when there was only water <br />enough for some thirty thousand acres. In his ramblings, one <br />of the valley residents noted that the GWlilisOd River ran at an <br />elevation sufficiently higher tha~ the uncomphagre to permit <br />gravi ty irrigation through a tunnel. The only ;,ro c.lems were <br />the gra~lite 'flaIls that e.:ltrenched the Gunnison River and some <br />seven miles of the Rocky Mountains (at the Continental Divide) <br />through which the tunnel Nas to be bored. <br />As in the Case of the Imperial Valley, this u~dertaki~g <br />WqS destined for disaster. Construction difficulties of the <br />tunnel were monumental as were the costs. The initial project, <br />f~ded by tne state of Colorado, gave out beforea thousand feet <br />of tunnel had bee~ carved. Interest was revived, however, with <br />the passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902.and construction <br />of the tunnel was renewed. <br />Unfortunately the Bureau of Reclamation's efforts did ~ot <br />fare much better than the state's. Although the t~lnel was <br />finally com;leted, the entire project was underestimated from <br />-10- <br />