BOARD00158

• Board Meeting Date: 12/12/1973
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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County area.

Mr. Cornelius: Larry, I just happen to have the final repor't to the
Four Corners Regional Commission project on the Grand Valley dem-
onstration project where we assisted the Water Board. I have given
it to the members of the board.

Mr. Sparks: Part of the funds that we utilized were from the Four
Corners Commission. The legislature appropriated some funds to the
board to carryon the work that Mr. Longley is doing. You will
recall at the Glenwood Springs meeting that one of our farm cooper-
ators made a statement to the board to the effect that where he used
to irrigate for ten days that as a result of the automated irrigation
that was installed in cooperation with Mr. Longley, he was able to
cut that irrigation to two and a half days. We think this is a very
substantial improvement in the irrigation practice. This type of
exploratory program should be expanded to all irrigated acreages,
not only in the Colorado River, but we think eventually in the South
Platte and the Arkansas as well.

The salinity standards have to be applied under the law to all rivers
in Colorado, not just to the Colorado, but to the Arkansas, the Rio
Grande and the South Platte as well. We will have a long continuing
problem. We are hoping that the work we are doing on the Colorado
River will be equally applicable to all other irrigated acreages in
Colorado.

The Arkansas River at the stateline in Colorado is about four times
as bad as the Colorado River. So this is a problem that we must
face for the indefinite future. The EPA, under the act of Congress
passed last year, is required to establish salinity standards for
all rivers in the United States. Why they picked on the Colorado
first, we don't know. 1 have a strong hunch that it was connected
with the Mexican problem. The Colorado River, to the best of my
knowledge, is the first river to be singled out under the 1972 act
for the establishment of salinity standards.

Mr. Kroeqer: Larry, you indicate that these standards that EPA has
handed down are pretty much based on the agreement with Mexico. How-
ever, I was at a meeting recently where it was brought out that the
EPA standards for the Arkansas were much more lenient. Is there a
rather arbitrary way in which they go about this? Do we have any
say so or comeback in that matter?

Mr. Sparks: We have never agreed, and I don't think the state of
Colorado should ever agree at this point in history, that 865 parts

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