BOARD01250

• Board Meeting Date: 12/9/1964
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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This is the situation that Mr. Milenski
says they can't contend with or don't intend
to contend with in the Arkansas Valley. It
is no particular business of ours here on our
staff whether people steal each other blind
or not. We just don't care in that respect.
We are here trying to do a job to manage the
water resources of the state of Colorado and
actually, without these wells we could not
manage the water resources of the Arkansas
valley or any other area of the state. They
are an absolute necessity to properly utilize
the full water supply. without them we could
only utilize a relatively small portion of
the total water supply of any of these valley
areas. They are a necessity.

But people also have established rights
under our Constitution and this is the problem
we are grappling with today. We are trying
to recognize that wells are necessary but
at the same time to preserve the vested rights
that are guaranteed under our Constitution.

I

One other thing is quite obvious - there
are two types of wells here in the Arkansas
valley. All of these wells, gentlemen, or
virtually all of them, are above the bedrock.
That is, they are in that formation, that
unconsolidated, loose formation or sand and
gravel formation, which is one hydraulic
body of water. This means that the wells
tapping this water up here, this water is
hydraulically connected with the river though
it may be five miles away. It still consti-
tutes one body of water and you can't separate
them and say that the wells up here have no
effect on the river, because they do. It is
one body of water. That's one type of well, I
these wells down in here which are sustained
largely by the return flow from the irrigation
use. Without these canals down here and the .
application of surface water on the lands,
these wells would not exist very long. The
water would normally return back to the river.

Wells here in the flood plain of the