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Mr. Stapleton: Now who does that benefit in terms of water rights or plans, to the action we take? In other words, I want to focus in on who we are helping ahd who we are hindering by ~hat. Obvi- ously, we are hindering the Rocky Mountain Power Company and Colorado River Water Conservation District. Who are we helping? Mr. Sparks: We have never made any analysis of this problem based 1 upon who was being helped or who was being hindered. It was imma~ terial to us who was in there or what the status of filings were. It has no bearing upon the study we made. . Some years ago, Governor McNichols appointed an oil shale committee, since continued by Governor Love, and now by Governor Vanderhoof, directing that intensive studies be made of the potential oil shale industry in Colorado. As the study progressed, it became obvious that the most important oil shale reserves were in the White River basin and also that that basin possessed tremendous coal reserves. On an acre per acre basis, that is the greatest potential energy producing area in the state of Colorado, and perhaps in the United States. Based upon that, this board, in cooperation with the fed- eral government, made some rather intensive studies of two projects. These were the Flat Tops project, initiated originally by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Yellow Jacket project, also initiated by the Bureau of Reclamation. All these private filings are merely spin- offs from work done by the federal government and by this board. It became apparent that it would be unwise to divert water from the White River into the Colorado River, or any other place, because of the tremendous energy potential of the White River basin. So we did not pursue the Flat Tops project. It was not included for feasibility study in the Act of 19S6. We did, however, pursue the Yellow Jacket project. Again, this had nothing to do with any individuals or companies. What we were trying to do was to determine whether or not we could supply Water to a major energy development center in the White River basin. We settled upon the Yellow Jacket project which included all of these reservoir sites that have been talked about here today, including an enlargement of the Trappers Lake. We foresaw that we would have difficulty, environmentally and otherwise. The White River is a small river. It produces only about a half a .1 million acre-feet. The present filings made by the Rocky Mountain Power Company, the Colorado River District, Carter Oil, and numerous others qreatlv exceed the total production of the South Fork of the White River. In any event, as to whom we benefit? We have been trying to benefit -l8-