BOARD00600

• Board Meeting Date: 3/19/1956
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

G "3.73

"TO

Ivan C. Crawford

I

FROM:
SUBJECT

R. M. Gildersleeve

Williams Fork (Williams River Situation
and Status of Replacement Studies.

I

A filing for the Williams Fork Reservoir was
accepted by the State Engineer on January 7, 1936 and
numbered 16051. Statements were made in the filing
that the reservoir was a portion of the Denver
Municipal Water System, a map and statement of which
was filed in the office of the State Engineer on
January 19, 1928. The height of dam was given
as 180 feet and the total capacity 93,637 acre feet.
Claim was made for "municipal uses and other beneficial
purposes including irrigation, the generation of
electric power, the use of water in connection with
the treatment and dsposal of municipal sewage and
the exchange of water for any of the foregoing or
other beneficial purposes." Work was commenced
by survey on November 10, 1935. Also, "water stored in
this Reservoir will be used in part by releasing the
same back into the channel of the Williams Fork
for regulating the flow of said stream in connection
with the diversion of water therefrom by means
of a transmountain tunnel to be constructed thru
the Continental Divide between the water shed of
Williams Fork and the water shed of Cle~r-Creek,
a tributary of the South Platte River."

The Jones Pass tunnel was completed in 1939. Water
is diverted from the headwaters of the Williams Fork
by diversion dams through pipe lines into the tunnel.
The first diversion was in May 1940. There are
absolute decrees from McQueary, Jones, Bobtail and
Steelman Creeks and tributaries with a limit at
anyone time of 214 cubic feet per second, dated
July 4, 1921, with a conditional decree of the same
date to expand to a total of 620 cubic feet per second.

A concrete arch dam about 70 feet high was
constructed on the Williams Fork, in which storage
began in April 1939. The capacity of the res.ervoir
was 5,120 acre feet until it was increased in 1942 to about
7,000 acre feet by the addition of radial gates
at the spillway. There is an absolute decree for
6,623 acre feet, under date of November 10, 1935, with
a conditional decree of the same date to expand to
93,637 acre feet.

The Jones Pass tunnel has diverted an average
. of 6 400 acre feet since diversions started, and the
rese~voir has been used to replace diversions by both
the Moffat and the Jones Pass tunnels.