9369 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9369
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: 12th & 13th Annual Colorado Water Workshop.
• USFW Year: 1987.
• USFW - Doc Type: Western State College of Colorado.
• Copyright Material: NO

available in Colorado and agricultural products began to be exported
out-of-state. The first farm products to gain a reputation outside the State
were Greeley potatoes. In the early 1890's Greeley shipped potatoes to
Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Arkansas Valley farmers were known for producing
cantaloupe, alfalfa, sugar beets and livestock feed products. In 1897, the
Mill and Growers Association of Rocky Ford shipped 121 railroad cars of
products eastward. Agriculture was growing on the West Slope as well. The
Grand Junction Fruit Growers Association, organized in 1891, shipped apples,
berries and pears out-of-state in 1892 (Mahar, 1963).

Building reservoirs, or even massive ditches, was expensive and beyond
the means of most mutual irrigation companies. To expand irrigation systems
further required someone with deeper pockets and the federal government came
immediately to mind. Before Congress gave in, however, they tried to
encourage individual investment. In 1877, Congress passed the Desert Land
Act. The Act provided for sale of up to 640 acres of land at $1. 25 an acre,
if the land was irrigated within three years. Not only did the Act invite
fraud, it failed to develop irrigation systems (Foss, 1978). Next, they tried
to encourage states to pick up the tab by passing the Carey Act in 1894.
States could apply for grants of up to a million acres of public domain land,
provided it was reclaimed by irrigation within ten years (Foss, 1978). Again,
the Act failed; states wer'e unwi 11 ing or incapable of providing the necessary
funds. Finally, Congress capitulated and passed the Reclamation Act of 1902,
After several fits and starts, the newly created Bureau of Reclamation began
to build large irrigation projects in western states, including Colorado.

The first Bureau undertaking in Colorado was the Uncompahgre Project in
Montrose and Delta counties. Authorized in 1904, the project's principle
features were a diversion dam on the Gunnison River and an almost 6 mile-long
tunnel (the longest water tunnel in the U.S. when it opened in 1910), that
deliver'ed water to the Uncompahgre Valley. The first components wer'e opened
in 1909 and eventually over 557 miles of main distribution canals and
laterals, as well as other tunnels and diversion structures were built.
Taylor Park Dam and Reservoir were added to the system in 1937. The Gunnision
dam and tunnel was followed quickly by another West Slope project, the Grand
Valley canal and irrigation system on the Colorado River near Grand Jt!nction.
It was completed in 1917 and included 94 miles of main canal, 166 miles of
laterals and two pumping stations that served the lands above the existing
gravity diversion structures.

Over the years, Colorado politicians expended massive amounts of
political capital to keep the Bureau of Reclamation building water projects in
Colorado. By 1960, projects were completed on all the major rivers in the
State and on many of the minor ones. Eventually, almost 29 percent of the
total quantity of irrigation wat.er in the St.ate came from Bureau projects, and
the water was applied to over 7 percent of the total irrigated acreage (Smith,
1984) .

Among t.he largest of the Bureau's construction programs, and one of the
most controversial, was the Colorado-Big Thompson project that diverted almost
240,000 acre-feet of water annually out of the Colorado River Basin and into
the South Platte River system. To build this system and accede to the
Bureau's demand to have a single agency with authority to contract for the
project's water, the Colorado legislature passed the Colorado Water
Conservancy Act in 1937, which authorized the formation of the Northern

- 6 -