BOARD01106

• Board Meeting Date: 2/3/1962
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

written and signed. It was a little
bit different than we now contemplated
in that at that time they merely
contemplated a deep or rather deep
drain through the low area from
approximately the San Luis lake to the
Rio Grande River below Alamosa. The
present program that we have worked out
with the Bureau has endeavored -- it
will be more fully explained later --
but briefly it contemplates more shallow
drainage to meet one of the principal
problems which precluded the construction
of the drain which was envisioned at the
time of the writing of the compact.

The deep drain, we feel, would not
work properly in that th~re is a definite
standard set for the quality of the water
which Colorado should inject into the
Rio Grande. It was felt the deep drain
could not and would not meet those standards
of salinity and other impurities.

The principal program and present set
up, as I understand it, envisions a shallow
drain and by the addition of pumping water
from an area where sweeter water may be
obtained to mix the two to the point where
they will meet the specifications as set
out in the compact for the quality of
water delivered. The water to be extracted
by pumps is to be from such areas and at
such rates that it will not effect the
present situation regarding irrigation.

The advantage of the pumping situation
is that, as Governor McNichols stated, it
might be stopped in any area where it is
found that it is adversely effecting tb~
water supply.

It will start at the lower end sub-
stantially opposite Alamosa, this is my
understanding, and the project would be
worked northward and by careful observation
they would determine the effect that the
operation is then having upon adjacent

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