BOARD00647

• Board Meeting Date: 8/15/1973
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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record Was to be left o~ened ror another fifteen or twenty days. We
had a tileeting with the Governor. I had discussed with Mr. Sparks
the general attitude and the position of the staff which had been
conveyed to the Governor earlier with respect to this area. We met
with the Governor. The Governor prepared a letter which went into
the record of Senator Haskell's hearings in substance supporting a
line at Pawn Creek which I think excludes the Budge's Resort private
development and the rest of the buundaries as Senator Haskell had
developed them. For reasons that are not clear to me, Senator Haskell
was convinced that the Meadows area should be deleted and that is the
way he created the boundaries, but the Governor's letter supported
the inclusion of the Meadows area in the Flat Tops Wilderness area
boundaries. And that letter is a matter of record in the hearings
held here in Colorado. And that decision that was taken by the
Governor was because this board had not taken a position per se.

Mr. Stapleton: I think I ought to make the record clear. I have
known Mr. Brannan for many years. I have never discussed this proj-
ect with him except prior to the meeting in Glenwood Springs when
he asked to be given the opportunity to appear. and I never even
talked with him after that. I just got a copy of the letter delivered
to my office. So I want it clear that I am not rowing his canoe; he
has to row it himself. But I think we are at a very, very important
stage in this board when we are not developing the water resources
of Colorado.

As Mr. Berthelson just said, we didn't need to in this particular
area and to let the water go down to Utah and the lower basin states,
and then at sometime when.we revise our plans we hope we can get it
out of the Wilderness area. Now that isn't what I think the board
was set out to do. We are to try to protect the water resources of
the state of Colorado.

Now I will be happy to try and work with Utah. but Utah isn't my
responsibility. I think when you get into this area that to choose
between a diversion from this fork of the White River, the Colorado
River, or at no diversion. And we say we don't need this. For the
seventeen or more years that I have been on this board. we have
always been talking about the need for water in western Colorado.
And I am not about to abandon that position that we need it in
western Colorado, maybe not this year, or the next, but sometime.
And to put this in a Wilderness area for some reason I am not clearly
aware of at this time to help somebody, I just think this is the
wrong policy to take. I am curious as to why, for example, the
Senator didn't ask us to comment on the other two Wilderness areas
that are up before Congress. It seems to me that if we are going to
get into this whole area, which God knows I think, is an error. But

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