BOARD00444

• Board Meeting Date: 1/11/1961
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

rather Breckenridge, ten or twelve years ago,
on Denver's claim for a conditional decree to
the water of the Blue River, it became import-
ant to inquire as to how Denver proposed to
store and impound and utilize that water. The
testimony disclosed there was a divergence of
opinion. I want to preface that by saying, I I
think I'm right when I say that the variation,
the annual variation and flow from year to
year in the South Platte River is greater than
that of any other stream in Colorado. Their .
highs are higher and their lows are lower.
And as a result of that fact, the testimony at
Breckenridge, both that given by engineers and
hydrologists for the City of Denver, for the
Colorado River District and for the Bureau of
Reclamation, established the fact that if ade-
quate storage is constructed at Two Forks
Reservoir site, there will be conserved an
average, after deducting evaporation and trans-
mission losses, of somewhere between 20,000
and 50,000 acre feet of water per year, which
is now going into Nebraska and is unused in
Colorado. Enough water to serve a population
of 100,000 to 250,000 people.

In accomplishing that result we are in
complete accord. Western Colorado has in-
sisted from the start, insisted at Breckenridge,
arl through the negotiations leading to the
Blue River Stipulation, that it was the duty
of the City of Denver to provide adequate stor-
age to impound the water that it owned. And
this is merely a step in that direction and we
are for it.

Now, as a result of Mr. Saunders state-
ment, which he says is a statement of the Denver
Water Board, this becomes my reaction, and I
have read between the lines as best I could
when he read that statement, but I want to - I I
don't know whether I want to call it make a
prediction. sound a warning, or whatever it
may be, but that statement lays the foundation
for utilizing this project, if it is constructed,
in furtherance of Mr. Saunders announced inten-
tion to do two things, one is to nullify the