BOARD01737

• Board Meeting Date: 6/26/1955
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

7 ~33

I

Last year at the urgent request of the Bureau
of Reclamation you authorized the construction of
22 new stations and provided additional funds in
the amount of $24,000 to finance their
construction and operation. Of this amount
$8,000 was made available in fiscal 1955 and
$18,000 in the current fiscal year. These amounts
were matched with Geological Survey funds
and all stations authorized were constructed and
are now in operation. However after this
program was authorized the Bureau of Reclamation
increased their request from 22 to 30 stations.
Since additional funds were not available and could
not have been matched had they been available,
the additional 8 stations were not constructed.

I

In order to give you complete information on this
program there is attached a complete list of the
40 stations now included in the program. The
project for which each record is needed is also
shown. Stations scheduled for discontinuance are
indicated and the new stations to replace them
are listed. We understand that funds will be'
available in fiscal 1957 for maintaining this
program on its present basis, but that no funds
are available for new stations to meet new needs.
However, at the annual stream-gaging conference
the Bureau of Reclamation established high
priorities for 16 new stations essential to
project investigations in the Colorado River
Basin. It seems obvious that construction of
these badly needed stations must be deferred.

Before closing I should call to your attention
a serious deficiency in basic data on Colorado's
water resourceS. That is the almost complete
lack of information on the physical and chemi~al
quality of the waters of Colorado's streams.
This is particularly true here in the Colorado
River Basin. With unrestricted federal funds
our Quality of Water Branch maintains a handful
of sampling stations on a few of the major streams,
but the data collected is only a fraction of
that needed. As development of our water resources
proceeds, definite and sometimes dangerous~
changes in the chemical quality of our waters are
certain to occur. In a State where water is so
lImited and so important it is difficult to see
how the necessity for information. on the quality
of water can continue to be completely overlooked.

In closing may I say that we regard very highly
the type of progress carried on in cooperation with
the Board for it meets all the criteria with which