BOARD00198

• Board Meeting Date: 1/15/1969
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

I

MR. OWENS I

MR. STAPLETON:

MR. OWENS:

I

legislature has devoted a tremendous amount
of time to this problem in the past few years.
It's a question now of getting something
which appears will be acceptable to the legis-
lature and have the general concurrence of
most water users. As has already been said
here, no bill will be acceptable to everyone.
There is no best bill that anyone can devise.
Without some acceptance on the part of the
water users, we are not going to get anywhere.

We will within two weeks, Mr. Chairman,
have our recommendations pinpointed to the
exact detail of what we think should be in-
cluded in the proposed legislation."

"Mr. Chairman."

"Yes, Mr. OWens."

"If I may have a few minutes, because I
am old in the irrigation business in Colo-
rado. I have spent 41 years as an administra-
tive officer or an engineer or employee of
the Federal Land Bank connected with irriga-
tion matters.

Let's review just for a few seconds the
development of Colorado from the first small
irrigation ditches which were dug with a plow
and a team on up to the days we have now with
our large canals, some of them lined to some
extent. Our first efforts at irrigation Were
for crops that required but a small amount of
water, and grains. We didn't even get into
corn - wheat, barley, oats - and on the
eastern slope our water supply is short.
The present irrigated acreage is far too
great for the water supply. We've built
reservoirs to capture the peak runoffs a
little bit later in the summer. That was a
a big help. We then went to the western
slope and we've developed all of the water,
as far as I can see, that it is possible to
develop from the western slope to bring this
way. Even for municipal purposes it is very,
very expensive for a small amount of water.