BOARD00744

• Board Meeting Date: 7/10/1973
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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Tops project. which involved substantially the same project that the
Colorado River District and Rocky Mountain Power Company are talking
about. It involved a series of dams to provide for the generation of
electricity and also to provide for the use of irrigation and ~ & I
water. That project envisioned the removal of some water from th~ White
River and 'transporting that water into the Colorado River above ~lenwood
Springs.

In 1958 I became a member of the board staff. and for the first year I
spent a large part of my time in reviewing all of those reconnaissance
reports to determine which ones appeared to be feasible. The Flat ~ops
pr03ect became a paradox immediately because of the importation factor.
that is. removing water from the White River and bringing it into the
Colorado.

Mr. Ro*lie Fischer: It was not the Flat Tops. it was the Sweetwater.

Mr. Sparks: In the reconnaissance report of the Bureau of Reclamation
it was ca.lled the Flat Tops project. Sweetwater was one of the'elements
of it.

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The first thing that I took up with the board was the matter of oil shale
water. The board authorized a study to determine the potential scope
of the oil shale industry and the water requirements for it. No such
study had ev~r been done previously. We spent a lot of time and a lot
of money on that study and the report was finally completed outlining
the potential oil shale industry. At the same time. increasing explo-
ration was going on by the federal government and by private companies
to determine the extent of the oil shale deposits. In the early 60's
it became apparent that the major oil shale deposits were not in the
Grand Valley'as was previously believed. but were in the Piceance basin
area of the White River. That changed our thinking considerably.
Before that time we had been thinking primarily in the terms of an oil
shale industry in the Grand Valley area. This then started a chain of
action to provide water to the Piceance basin it in fact an oil shale
industry developed. Looking at the Flat Tops project. it did not seem
desirable to take water from the White River and bring it into the Colo-
rado River in view of the tremendous oil shale deposits in the White River
area. So the state of Colorado did not pursue the Flat Tops project.
We did not ask that it be authorized or even included for feasibility
study.

When the proposals for this wilderness area were activated we had already
informed the Bureau of Reclamation to review all of these projects.

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