BOARD01372

• Board Meeting Date: 11/17/1976
• Description: Agenda, Minutes, Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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The situation proved that the flow in the winter months was insufficient
to adequately sustain the fish life in the stream.

We have two other streams in Lake County that are very picturesque mountain
streams that under the terms of the Fryingpan-Arkansas plan would be
dried up during portions of every year. As we understand it, approxi-
mately one and a half miles of Half Moon Creek will be treated in this
fashion and approximately three miles of Lake Creek also would be under
this policy.

This, then, would mean that these portions could be removed from the
game fishing,pleasure of Lake County that would amount to four and a
half miles of very beautiful water. This does not ~ount the two miles
of stream that has already been affected by the, inadequate amount of
water discharged from Sugarloaf Dam and Reservoir.

The Board of County Commissioners recommends that the minimum flow be
established on these streams in Lake County as follows: Number one,
Lake Creek, 15 cubic feet per second year-round. Number two, Half
Moon Creek, 7 cubic feet per second year-round. Number three, Lake Fork
Creek, 15 cubic feet per second year-round.

We feel that this amount of water is necessary to maintain the fisheries
that our area is noted for and also to maintain the quality of the
watershed and the aesthetics of Lake County. On behalf of our Board, I
respectfully recommend that this report be placed in the minutes of
this meeting as a permanent record of our position on the minimum flow
problem. '

I would also like to place in the record a letter that was drafted to
the Bureau of Reclamation by m? as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners.
"Dear Mr. Roger: This is in answer to your letter of October 5, 1976,
in which you stated that conditions could arise when by vrtue of legal
description, a stream could be dried up.

Reference to the stream directly below Sugarloaf and the dam, I want to
strongly state to you that the Board of Commissioners and the citizens
of Lake County are very much opposed to any plan, any arrangement, any
set of conditions that would dry up any stream in Lake County due to the
Fryingpan Project.

I am fully aware that some plans have been made and reports made through
the Environmental Impact Statement that would bring about the drying up
of some of the creeks in Lake County. It is our understanding that the
minimum flow would be set at ten cubic feet per second year-round in
Lake Fork Creek. In fact, if I remember correctly, you made a statement
to that effect at our public hearing.

We have been assured by many statements in the past that the Bureau of
Reclamation desires to protect the environment and beauty of Lake County.
We believe that a dried up stream is certainly an eyesore and a decrease
in the beauty of the area through which the water normally flows."

That is signed by me as Chairman of the Board.

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