BOARD01764

• Board Meeting Date: 2/16/1960
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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MR. STAPLETON:
MR. MOSES:

"Mr. Moses."

"May I make one comment on that. In the
first place this does not take irrigation water ~
the pool does not come out of the conservation
storage in John Martin. It comes out of the
flood control portion of the storage. This is
always a question of which comes first - the
chicken or the egg. There is strong sentiment
for the establishment of this pool provided it
can be done without injury to the irrigators.
The Corps of Engineers has taken the position
that under the existing authorizing legislation,
they are not permitted to make or inaugurate a
fish pool; that the only two types of pools that
are authorized by the original authorizing legis-
lation are a conservation pool and a flood con-
trol pool. This would come right above the con-
servation pool and come out of the flood control
pool.

I

My personal op1n1on is that I think the
Corps could change the level, but they have
taken that position and I think they are justi-
fied in taking that position.

The bill, as drafted, contemplates the pur-
chase - outright purchase - by the Game and Fish
Department of active irrigation rights, in the
total of the amount of the additional pool and
the amount of the evaporation loss from the pool
in subsequent years, so that the water would not
not be taken from any irrigator except the irri-
gator who voluntarily sells his decree to the
Game and Fish Department. As far as the other
irrigators are concerned, their water rights
would not be affected, and I think the bill offers
the necessary protection in both paragraph (b)
which says 'the rights of irrigators.....shall
not be diminished by anything contained in the
act', and by paragraph (d) which states that no
pool shall be created or operated except upon
written terms and conditions mutually acceptable 1-
to the Chief of Engineers, Colorado State Engi-
neer and the Arkansas River Compact Commission.
Now out of these three groups, the water users
in Colorado have significant influence with two
of the three groups - the State Engineer and the
Commission - and it doesn't seem probable to me
that the State Engineer or ~he Arkansas River
Commission would take any action which was