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<br />I <br /> <br />flood hazard areas. We are wondering how much more money we will have <br />to spend to get areas approved by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. <br />In other words, are there some guidelines you are going to use? What <br />I am saying is, what is it going to cost the counties and how do they <br />get the job done? <br /> <br />Mr. Sparks: We sent out guidelines to each county last fall. We <br />requested the counties to establish priorities for studies within their <br />respective boundaries. As fast as ~e receive the requestS from the <br />counties, we schedule floodplain st~dies utilizing state, federal and <br />local money. We can't do much if the county doesn't submit the informa- <br />tion to us. The counties themselves we doubt will ever have sufficient <br />funding to do all of the studies themselves. Those studies should be <br />coordinated through our office so that we can bring to bear the <br />resources of the federal government. <br /> <br />We had a scheduling conference last week with representatives of the <br />various Corps districts, the Sacramento District for the Colorado River, <br />the Omaha District for the South Platte, the Kansas City District for <br />the Republican, and the Albuquerque District for the Rio Grande and <br />Arkansas. Also participating were the Soil Conservation Service, Geo- <br />logical Survey, Bureau of Reclamation, the Urban Drainage District and <br />the Federal Insurance Administration. We set up a program to cover all <br />the requests that we have today within the state of Colorado. Logan <br />county was one of the areas which was included and was assigned to the <br />Omaha District of the Corps of Engineers. All these various agencies <br />will submit back to us the program that they will be able to carry on <br />for next fiscal year. At this time, none of us know how much money we <br />will have for next fiscal year. We won I t know until the legislature <br />acts on our budget what our funding capability is. The local people <br />don't know how much money they will get in other state funds until the <br />budget is adopted. We have programmed all of the studies that we know <br />about in the state of Colorado. As soon as we get that program <br />,finalized, which we hope will be sometime in April or May, we will then <br />""get back with the counties to see how much they can fund for a particular <br />study. Studies are running about $3,000 a mile. We figure we have <br />some 5,000 miles of floodplains. You can see we are talking about <br />something like fifteen million dollars to get the job done. <br /> <br />Mr. Stapleton: What responsibility do we have to report back to the <br />legislature? <br /> <br />,Mr. Sparks: Next Tuesday we have to appear before the Joint Budget <br />'Committee. I will discuss this matter with them and the potential <br />funding requirements. We believe this board should be funded for about <br />$300,000 a year for at least the next five years to assist the local <br />communities in getting the job done. I'think it is already recognized <br />,by the General Assembly that it will be impossible, at least in our <br />case, to meet the 1976 deadline. <br /> <br />In exploring it with the people who sponsored the bill, they told me <br />that they recognized at the time that we could not get everything done <br />within that time frame, but that they wanted to' set some spec1fic'time <br />frame to emphasize the urgency of getting on with the job. <br /> <br />1 <br /> <br />-4- <br />