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JOO'fo Our major problem on the Narrows project is that we simply do not have. and will not have. enough water in the South Platte Valley to distribute throughout the length of the Valley to take care of even all of the present irrigated acreage. The most critical area we consider in the South Platte Valley is the area covered by the Riverside Irrigation District, which is generally north of the river in the vicinity of Fort Morgan; Fort Morgan being just off the map. right down here. (Mr. Sparks used the quad map to point out the different areas he referred to.) This irrigated area north of the river is critically Short of water and possesses some good farming land. It is under the Riverside Irrigation District. Our problem was how to stretch this water from the Riverside District on down to the North Sterling District which is also short of water. That's in the vicinity north of sterling. I In the original Narrows plan there was simply no way to stretch the water. We computed about 85,000 acre-feet of water available and it would not stretch from the Riverside to the North Sterling. It could not be done. If you included one you had to leave out the other. And this has been the big fight over the years about this project. The Riverside people and the Bijou people (who can also use additional water; they are in the area south of the river). have insisted that the reservoir be built up here at the Weld County site. Then the water could be turned by direct diversion through their existing canal systems, that is. the Riverside and the Bijou, and fully satisfy their needs. But when we talked about serving the full needs of the upper area. then we encountered opposition from the lower area. So this is the tug-of-war that we have been in since 1946. and still have not solved. I In an attempt to solve the problem, our staff and the Bureau of Reclamation have repeat- edly met in conferences as to how we could better the plan. We finally decided. in looking -'---