BOARD01323

• Board Meeting Date: 7/11/1978
• Description: Agenda, Minutes, Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

Region, representing our regional director, Joe Hall, who couldn't
make it here today. We very much appreciate the opportunity to bring
you up to date on our programs.

I

As Larry pointed out, we have been involved in the Front Range study
for some time. And maybe for those of you who are not familiar with
our unit area, it extends from north of Denver to the state line and
generally from the mountains out through the plains~ including the
communities of Greeley, Longmont, Louisville, Fort Collins, Boulder,
and Estes Park. . Even though Estes Park is up in the mountains some-
what"they had expressed interest in additional water supplies. So: it
is primarily a municipal and industrial, water supply study for those
communities as well as evaluating the impact on flood control and
protection of agricultural water users and enhancement of streamflows
for fishery and recreational purposes.

Now, .we began in the fiscal '70 period and met very closely with the
three counties involved -- Boulder, Larimer, and Weld, and utilized
information that they had gathered about population projections. We
soon found that the growth issue in the Front Range area was the
primary concern of most people. You could ask almost anyone, and they
had a different answer on what the population was going to be in 10
years. We used information from these counties and the communities'to
develop problems and needs type of frameworks. And then we attempted
to develop ways and means of developing a water supply to, meet all the
needs.

Under our criteria, we were required to look at multiple objective
planning approaches. Historically, we looked at the projects that had
the most economic solutions to the problems. Under the guidelines
promulgated in the 1973.period"we are looking a~ alternative plans,
which meant environmental quality, regional development, social well-
being, and a number of other factors. So we were involved in a rather
broad based planning effort.

I

After we had developed a number of conceptual approaches, we found that
we didn't have widespread local support. In fact, we didn't have wide-
spread support for practically any of the ideas we were developing;,
We were looking, at structural approaches; ih other.wordsL dams in the,
mountains, to store and regulate the water supply and then, of .course,
release it to meet demands.

In your booklet here, we have described the concept which stores the
water in the mountains and then through a system of conduits we can
release the water and interchange the water from one basin to another.

We sent this status report out in February of 1977 to about 300 or 400

-9-