BOARD00198

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

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private land is estimated at $900,000. The
cost would be charged to the project to be
repaid by the water users. In addition to
the official districts in western Colorado,
the local residents take considerable excep-
tion to this part of the project plan. Those
objections can be summarized as follows:

Virtually all of the lands to be irri-
gated under the project are now in private
ownership. In the White River area, the proj-
ect would bring under irrigation about 16,000
acres of land which are now mostly dry farmed
or used for grazing purposes. About 25 per-
cent of the area is used for the production
of wheat. However, this is an alternate every
other year production in most cases. The
land is allowed to lie fallow for one year
and then put in wheat the succeeding year,
and so on. With irrigation the most likely
crops would be alfalfa and irrigated pasture.
There would also be some small grains that
are normally irrigated or can be irrigate~,
such as barley. The total crop production
on these lands now dry farmed would be about
doubled by the project water.

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The local ranchers are of the most de-
cided opinion that instead of forage for big-
game animals decreasing, it would materially
increase. They do not believe that they
should be penalized for placing their own
private lands under irrigation. The addi-
tional private lands to be placed under irri-
gation would total about 16,000 acres. The
proposed project plan, however, contemplates
the removal of almost 17,000 acres of land,of
which 14,000 acres are now in private owner-
ship. This removal would be from a domestic
livestock usage to a purely big-game habitat.
The local residents feel that such an ex-
change would do little, if anything, to add to
the economy of the area. In other words,
they say 'We are putting l6,000 acres under
irrigation and you are taking over 16,000
acres away from us~.