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• SUMMARY SHEETS Grand Valley Unit--Stage One Development LOCATION The Grand Valley Unit would be located in Mesa County of west-central Colorado in the Upper Colorado River Basin. UNIT PLAN The overall unit would be designed to reduce the-salt loading of the Colorado River in .the Grand Valley by about 410,000 tons annually by decreasing the amount of irrigation return flows and- conveyance system seepage moving through saline substrata and picking up salts. The re- duction would result in a decrease in the salinity of the river at Impe- rial Dam of approximately 43 mg/1 and would be accomplished by a three- segment program conducted by the Bureau of Reclamation in the Department of the Interior and the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. A Water Systems Improvement program would be conducted by • the Bureau in which canals and laterals would be lined or placed in pipe to reduce. seepage. Since only lined canals were included in the plan at authorization, the approval of the appropriate congressional committees would be required to use pipe for those facilities. An Irrigation Man- agement Services program is presently being conducted by the Bureau in. conjunction with the unit to provide irrigators with precise data con- cerning optimum timing and application of irrigation water. On-farm Im- provements, including upgrading of irrigation systems by cost assist- ance, improvement of irrigation management, .improvement of grazing lands and grazing practices on private rangeland, and voluntary wildlife improvement measures would be conducted by the Soil Conservation Service to reduce deep percolation from farm operations. A wildlife area and watering ponds would be provided by the Bureau to compensate for wild- life habitat losses resulting from the Water Systems Improvement pro- gram. This wildlife measure was also not included in the unit plan when it was authorized, and would require the approval of appropriate con- gressional committees. STAGE ONE DEVELOPMENT The unit would be developed in stages to allow the Bureau of Reclamation to begin construction in a portion of the valley where plans and designs are complete, where sufficient data are available to assess the impact of the initial development while investigations and planning continue on • the rest of the ,unit, and where environmental impacts would not be