BOARD01635

• Board Meeting Date: 3/26/1945
• Description: Table of Contents and Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Minutes

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tions as may now' be required, to avoidinterrupting.the progressive devel-
opment of the State, were made by the Bureau of Reclamation when on June
6, 1944, all ~hosecprojects..thatj.appetred,:.from;"pend!ng'.B.nda.ompiftBd in-
vestigations, to be most need~d, feasible and eoonomioally justified, were
reqommended to Congress for postwar construction in Colorado.

13. The major intrastate problema that confront Colorado are those
involving diversions from the Colorado River Basin for use in other seo-
tionS' of the State. These are oreated by the unequal distribution of land
and water resources over Colorado, _ 70 percent of the water resources of
the State being in the Colorado River Basin, west of the Continental Divide,
whereas that basin contains but 26 peroent of the irrigated lands and but
5 percent of the arable lands awaiting reclamation by irrigation in Colo-
rado. The polioy of the State of Colorado, with respeot to export diver-
sions from the Colorado River Basin, is expressed in the Colorado Yater
Conservancy District Law (Seo. 13, Session Lam of 1937, as amended), whioh
provides that.

(a) Any works or faoilities planned or designed for the exporta-
tion of water fran the natural basin of the Colorado River and ita tribu-
taries in Colorado shall be subject to the provisions of the Colorado Ri-
ver Compact and the Boulder Canyon Project tot, .as amended,

(b) Any suoh works or faoilities shall be designed, oonstruoted
and operated in suoh a manner that the present appropriations of water,
and in addition thereto prospective uses of water for irrigation and other
benefioial oonsumptive-use purposes, inoluding consumptive uses for danee-
tio, mining and industrial purposes, within the natural basin of the Colo-
rado River in the State of Colorado from which the water is exported, will
not be impaired nor increased in cost at the expense of water users within
the said natural basin; and,

(c) The faoilities; and other means for the acoomplishment of
said purpose shall be inoorporated in, and made a part of, any project
plans fo~ the exportation of water from said natural basin in Colorado.

Under the said polioy of the State of, Colorado the intrastate
problems inoident to exportations fran the Colorado River Basin are be-
ing solved as rapidl;r as the deatiled investigations and projeot reports
are oompleted by the Bureau of Reolamation. Colorado points out that
the recsnt reorganization of the Bureau of Recllllllation has delayed the
oompletion of projeot. investigatione, that the boundaries of regions now
established, tho'Jgh helpful to States suoh as Utah and California,inas-
muoh as the Salt Lake and Boulder City officerr have charge of the areas
involved in both the points of diversion and the places of use of euoh
exportations, are adverse to developments in Colorado, inasmuch as the
State and its oitizene; are required to deal with the Salt Lake offioli,
in charge of' the Colorado River Basin, and with the >>enver and Amarillo
offices, in charge of river basins in Colorado eas~ of the Continental
Divide, and that the Report on the Colorado River Basin ehowe the esti-
mated oosts and potential depletions of exportation projeots under in-
vestigation by the Denver and Amarillo offioes, but does not report the