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~~ <br />Settlement of the Uinta Basin and the subsequent development of its water <br />resources began in the late 1800s. The Uinta and Ouray Indian Reservation was <br />established by the federal government on October 3, 1861. From 1865 to 1899, <br />fourteen canals were built by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs with help from Mormon <br />missionaries. The development of these canals signaled the first wave of concerted effort <br />to develop the water resources of the Uinta Basin (Kendrick 1989). <br />Non-native American settlement began in the Uinta Basin after the opening of the <br />Uinta and Ouray Indian Reservation to white settlement on August 17, 1905. Private <br />irrigation companies built new canals and diverted water to non-Indians. These <br />companies were also the first to construct dams, excavate drainage channels, and install <br />control structures on the high mountain lakes of the Uinta Mountains. By 1930, 24 <br />such lakes had been altered on the headwaters of the Uinta, Lake Fork, and Whiterocks <br />Rivers (Kendrick 1989). <br />Canals and storage structures were also built for transbasin diversions. Through <br />the assistance of the U.S. Reclamation Service, the Strawberry Valley Project began in <br />1906 and was completed in 1915 on the Strawberry River, a major tributary of the <br />Duchesne River. This project diverts water from the Strawberry Reservoir through a <br />tunnel to Spanish Fork. Today, the Strawberry tunnel diverts 75 hectometers (60,000 <br />acre-feet) per year from streams that otherwise drain to the Uinta Basin. The <br />Duchesne tunnel, completed in 1953, was the second major transbasin diversion and <br />today diverts 45 hectometers (37,000 acre-feet) per year. The Hobble Creek ditch and <br />the Strawberry River and Willow Creek ditch also divert transbasin waters from the <br />12 <br />