BOARD01106

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

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so that makes subirrigation and it makes
it necessary that our water table stay
closer than eight feet if it is going
to do us any good.

The only time pumping is really
successful is when we run short of water
and we can bring and hold our water at
four, five or six feet at the best. When
it goes below that, our moisture is
evaporated by plant growth and weather
very fast.

Water pumped from the Basin. Now,
we deplete our water by pumping on our
crops. We use about one third of our
water through the process of rotating.
When you pump from the sump area, fellows,
it is 100 percent down the river and
there is no return. You take 100,000 feet
out of the San Luis Valley and I don't
care where it is at, see what happens.
You see what happens when there is no
return.

Now, the Closed Basin will be pumped
the hardest when direct flow is shortest.
That is the only time you need that Basin
is when we are pumping water. On every
quarter of land there is at least one
pump. You will start a full string of
pumps on the Closed Basin. What takes
place -- sixteen foot water, I'll be twenty-
six foot to water -- because you are
talking -- whenever you take out it's
100 percent down the river. No return.
We, at least, rotate our water. I pump it,
my neighbor pumps it and it goes down that
way.

Now, this is something which was
decided at the meeting at Sargents: Rio
Grande should stand its own debit. That
is the place the mistake was made if it
is a mistake. If we oversold ourselves,
that is where it happened. The Rio Grande
River and Conejos River is responsible
for your debit, not the boys in the Closed

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