BOARD00985

• Board Meeting Date: 2/5/1969
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

Five years ago we were in no position to admin-
ister any type of law. The state engineer is
in a position on a daily basis of trying to
make decisions upon which adequate information
has heretofore not been available. These
studies are not completed as yet but are re-
lated to the bill which we have drafted. You I
will note a time schedule for the accomplish-
ment of certain things which is related to the
studies that are being carried out in the major
groundwater basins.

The final step is the application stage.
How do we apply this considerable and complex
knowledge that was gained from these basic
studies? We decided upon a solution of an
electric analog model backed up by a digital
computer. We have on the board here (again
pointing) the Arkansas system. This is the
simplest groundwater system we have in the
state. The complexity of trying to determine
what effect a well at Pueblo has upon a sur-
face right down at Lamar, or what effect 40
wells at Pueblo have upon a surface right at
Holly is considerable. These matters can be
determined with the use of ordinary calcula-
tors, but it takes literally thousands of man
hours to compute any great number of problems.

We therefore prepared, through the
Geological Survey, an electric analog model
of all of these systems. The only one which
is completed at this time is for the Arkansas
Valley. With that model we simply compressed
distance and time into a capsule, using the
familiar process of analogy which we all use
in our everyday lives. By that, I mean that
we examined the hydrologic system and said
'Let's assume on a scale that 1000 miles of
river equals six inches of copper wire, and
it takes an electrical current a microsecond
to travel through this length', It takes a
shorter time than that actually but I use
the figure for illustration only. Then we
have the beginning of an analog. We say that

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