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<br />This particular fiscal year of 1979, Congress appropriated about $700,000 <br />for us to continue our advanced planning, and they also added $100,000 <br />into that to initiate construction. Our primary efforts right now are <br />in that direction, and that is to initiate construction this year on the <br />Closed Basin Division. <br /> <br />Some of the things that we have under way trying to lead to that are <br />tied very tightly to a time schedule that must end or begin, whichever <br />way you. want to look at it, by October 1 of this particular calendar <br />year. That is when our fiscal year ends and begins. . <br /> <br />We have right now in Washington a draft environmental impact statement, <br />and we hope to have that filed with EPA sometime late this month or in <br />early April. We would plan then on having public hearings on this par- <br />ticular draft statement sometime in May 1979. We would hope to complete <br />negotiations with the state of Colorado for rights-of-way on those lands <br />owned by the State sometime by June of this particular year. As soon <br />as we have the public hearings on the draft env.ironmental.impact state- <br />ment, we will then immediately initiate work on completing the final <br />environmental impact statement. And we hope to have that final state- <br />ment first completed by around July of this particular year. <br /> <br />We also are in the progress of working with the Rio Grande Water Con- <br />servancy District to get the water rights for this particular-project, <br />and we hope those efforts will be completed by about July of this par- <br />ticular year. <br /> <br />A final environmental impact statement, we hope, will be filed in August <br />of this. year; and the definite plan report, the last report to layout <br />the projects in detail, will also be sent to our Commissioner's office <br />in August of this year. <br /> <br />We then,' under this schedule, hope to get approval from our Commissioner's <br />office to initiate construction in September. Our initial construction <br />effort will be: limited solely to. the purchase of rights-of~way, and we <br />are already under way with some of those efforts. We are gathering land- <br />record data from the legal institutions in the area, and we-hope to-have <br />that all completed and be ready to buy some of the rights-of-way during <br />September of 1979. <br /> <br />If all of this comes about, and we agree that this is an optimistic <br />schedule, we hope then to award our first actual construction contract <br />for the drilling of water wells sometime early in 1980. We are pro- <br />jecting right now about March of 1980. This particular first contract <br />would deal with 44 wells in what we call the "Stage 1-2 area." <br /> <br />Originally, this was broken out as two particular stages, because the <br />area is very nearly the same as far as the-groundwater conditions are <br />concerned. We are going to combine these into one area, and we are. <br />projecting now that there:will be 44 wells in this particular stage; <br /> <br />If we get that under way and we award those contracts in 1980 for these <br />particular wells, this will include a conveyance canal to carry the - <br /> <br />-10- <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />I <br />