BOARD01143

• Board Meeting Date: 12/11/1953
• Description: Minutes and Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

308

should be taken on that. Whether your project is on the Gunnison
River Or on some small creek, the Bo~ will have to investigate it".

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Mr. Mosel!: "I think it should be considered by the Board that the
facilities of the office should be utilized to further that study by
the Bureau and the Upper Colorado CoIDmission Engineers and the Board's
engineers."

Mr. Jex: "The State of Colorado will be called on to support th~
Curecanti reservoir and by that time the Board will have in its
possession suggested tnformation, so that it can make the proper.
presentation for the hearings."

Mr. Peterson: "Inasmuch as Mr. Jex has done a lot of work on this
project, we would like very much if Mr. Jex could be considered and
made a party on the investigation of this project."

Mr. Bailey: "We will recess.until 1:30 P. M.

PSternoon Session

Mr, Bailey called the meeting to order at 1:45 P.M., and stated,
"This afternoon we will probably hear DeBeque reservoir mentioned
from time to time. I am going to ask Mr. Larson to tell us briefly
what the DeBeque Reservoir is".

I

Mr. Larson: "We have just completed a statistical report on the irri-
gation development above DeBeque. That report. is being changed a
little for future guidance and investigation. The.figures show that
we have about 20 individual projects, totaling 235,000 acres of land,
173 new and 62 supplemental. During the compilation 9f our statisti-
cal report, we did summarize all the data pertaining to larrl~ and
water for Mr. Hill so th!lt he might have it available for his report
in tab1llar form.. Vie did not attempt. to make any estimates for the
potential use of wa~er or other industrial uses. Also, we did not
attempt to go into the detailed study of the so called large DeBeque
site. We are attempting to get, main stem units that would hold over
water from. wet cycles to dry cycles. We did, however, take into con-
sideration the potentialities of this site. BW stud~ing the topograph-
ical map we picked up a dam 290 feet high. and it would create storage of
about 2,250,000 ft. A reservoir of that capacity would flood out the
railroad, highways and the country roads for about 25 miles. Th~ pre-
sent railroad has a maximum grade of about 1.3 feet to the mile and it
is possible to get around the reservoir within that grade. We figured
that roughly a power plant could not be. installed with a power of
72,000 Kl'{ capacity. There is one problem and that is whether or not
this topographic map is accurate or not. In looking at th~ potential
uses of this reservoir we see there are several; one is the use of water
for. the development of oil or other industrial uses. Another, w!'ter
that might be required for' population uses, domestic uses down below the
ca.cyon, use for storage to repl'lce transmo)lntain diversion. More than
300,000 acres of farm land would be taken out of production. The dam