BOARD01732

• Board Meeting Date: 3/20/1974
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

a little thought, there are three methods by which you can get back to
the street level. You can either walk down the stairs, you can take
the elevator or you can jump out the window. Now I am afraid to mention
jumping out the window, because somebody might leave here and say I told
them to jump out the window. This is exactly what we are running into
in this planning process. The minute that we brought in the Ferndale
site on the North Fork and brought in the West Plum Creek site as
required by the existing procedure, we incurred the wrath of many people
who didn't even realize that this project existed. But once you open
up all types of alternatives, people start writing letters to the
governor and to the senators and representatives in the Congress saying
that they are opposed to the Upper South Platte project. Actually, we
are not going to build at all the three sites. The people in the various
study areas have a real and legitimate interest in their area, but they
immediately assume that is has been decided that we intend to build a
dam on West Plum Creek or on the North Fork. We have received a number
of letters from out of state, particularly about the North Fork site,
people saying, "I have visited Ferndale. How can you in Colorado even
consider flooding out that beautiful area?" We are required to consider
it, even though it may be rejected. The undesirable side effect of
that is that we are creating prejudices against the project needlessly.
Many of the people from out of state are writing their congressmen and
senators and saying, "When this project comes up in Congress, oppose
it.'1

I

The procedure is creating untold difficulties for us. In my opinion,
it is needless, but nevertheless that is the way the planning jungle
works today. We have to go through this rather fruitless, unproductive
planning procedure. I don't know the way out. I simply point out that
it looks good on paper to some joker sitting back there in the Bureau
of the Budget or on the National Water Council, but they don't consider
the undesirable side effects of this type of formalized planning. Nor
do they give anybody in the planning field at the local level any credit
for any intelligence at all. They just assume we never look at all
the alternatives. That is the way the ball bounces and we are in for
some trying times with this and other projects. We are close to the
decision-making time. Sometime within the next six months or so this
board will be faced with holding a meeting to consider the comments on
the feasibility report.

I

Mr. Stapleton: Do any members of the audience have any questions of the
Bureau people? All right, Kent, thank you very much for your presen-
tation. We will be anxious to get into the next phase of it.

rtt. Shuvler: Thank you.

-12-