BOARD01741

• Board Meeting Date: 6/20/1955
• Description: Minutes and Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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The reappraisal was summarized in a supplemental
report on Rio Grande and Weminuche Pass Divisions,
San Luis Valley Project, dated February, 1953. The
report presented a plan for a 1,050,000 acre-foot
reservoir at the Wagon Wheel Gap site, together with a
50,000 kw capacity power plant at the toe of the dam,
a transmission system and a 1,000 acre-foot after bay
downstream at the Coller Dam Site.

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The cost of the dam and reservoir, as proposed in
this report, was about $32,500,000, and the total project
cost was more than $51,000,000, exclusive of the
Weminuche Diversion which was estimated at $2,700,000.
The allocations of costs, in percentage of total costs,
were: Irrigation 42 per cent, flood control 12 per cent,
power 46 per cent, and a small amount to recreation. As
for the amount allocated to irrigation and flood control
combined, irrigation represented 77 per cent and flood
control 23 per cent .

This February 1953 report. was transmitted to the
States of Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, and to
interested Federal agencies for comments. It was
. considered by the Water Conservation Board at its
meeting on August 6, 1953 and the resulting official
State comments were transmitted to the Secretary of the
Interior under date of August 12, 1953.

The position taken by Colorado in these comments was
that the project as recommended at that time was not the
most economical one which could be conceived for the area,
and neither the power features or a reservoir~with a
capacity of 1,000,000 acre-feet could be justified. The
amount of flood control benefits which were assigned to
the project in that report were also questioned as being
unrealistic. It was recommended that determinations be
made of a reservoir which will provide the greatest benefit
at the least cost, the manner in which the operation of
the reservoir can be coordinated with the use of ground
water storage, and a re-evaluation of flood control I
benefits in Colorado and New Mexico which will result .
from the project.