BOARD00064

• Board Meeting Date: 12/17/1956
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

579

COP Y
- ---

COP Y

UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Geological Survey
Federal Center, Denver, Colorado

November 30, 1956

In Reply Refer To:
Water Resources
Division
Ground Water
Branch

I

Dean Ivan Crawford, Director
Colorado Water Conservation Board
212 State Office Building
Denver 2, Colorado

Dear Dean Crawford:

In accordance with your request in our telephone conservation
yesterday, I am enclosing an estimate of the cost of investigating
the ground-water resources of the principal areas of ground-water
production in Colorado. The 31 projects listed would cover the
areas that we now know to be the principal producers of ground water
in Colorado. We estimate that more than 95 percent of the ground
water produced by wells in Colorado is derived from aquifers in these
areas. The last item is for a reconnaissance of the remainder of
the State to determine if and where additional studies may be needed.

The costs are based on our estimates of the technical man-years
required to complete each project plus what we think may be required
in the way of exploratory test drilling. A recent analysis of our
costs of operation during the last fiscal year showed that the annual
cost for each professional geologist or engineer working on a field
project is about $12,000. This includes salary, expenses, trans-
portation, equipment, supervision, chemical analyses, mechanical
analyses, surveying crews, draftsmen, secretarial help, and field
assistants, but it does not include test drilling. The amount of
test drilling required ranges widely from one project to another.

The time required' to complete these projects is extremely diffi-
cult to estimate because of the critical shortage of engineers and
geologists, the time required to train them in the highly specialized
field of ground-water hydrology, and the uncertain labor market in
general. The Colorado Water Conservation Board's budget request of
$40,000 for matching with Federal funds in FY 1958 is as much as we
anticipated we could use efficiently--even with a diligent search
for additional personnel. If the Governor and the Legislature feel 1
that the State should launch a long-range large-scale investigation
of the ground-water resources of Colorado, additional funds could
perhaps be utilized efficiently in fiscal year 1958 by making an
all-out search for additional technical personnel and, if the search '
were not entirely successful, the surplus funds could be used to
good advantage in an exploratory drilling program in some of the
areas where ground-water studies are scheduled to start at an early
date. In this way, much additional data will be available to the
geologist or engineer when he begins work on the project.