BOARD01845

• Board Meeting Date: 1/14/1954
• Description: Table of Contents, Minutes and Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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9. Colorado has no objections to the report of the
Secretary of the Interior on participating projects
except that Colorado urges that further study be given
to the La Plata Project, which is urgently needed, in
order to develop, if possible, a feasible plan therefor
and except as hereinafter noted.

10. The report and the Supplemental Report of the
Secretary of th~ Interior practically ignores any
development of Colorado River System water in Colo-
rado. For this reason, Colorado cannot accept the
report and supplemental report as now submitted. As
conditions precedent to Colorado approval of the report,
provisions must be made therein, or in the authorizing
legislation, which will assure the following water de-
velopment in Colorado:

(a) T!1e Cross Mountain unit mw>t be included within
the initial authorization for construction as a part
of the first phase of the project.

(b) There is no doubt that further consumptive use
of water in Colorado is directly dependent upon high
upstream storage. To provide therefor there must be
included in the initial authorization approximately
3,000,000 acre-feet of total new storage on the
Colorado River and its tributaries above Grand
Junction, Colorado, a substantial portion of which
shall be located on the upper reaches of the Gun-
nison River. The known reservoir sites which might
accomplish this objective are Curecanti on the Gun-
nison and DeBeque on the Colorado River. Additional
investigations may disclose other sites. There is
little doubt but that the stated amount of storage
will be needed. The Secretary of the Interior is
urged to expedite the investigation and study of
projects which will furnish the requested storage.

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11. Denver, the capitol city of Colorado, desires to
divert water from the Blue River, a tributary of the
Colorado River, for use for municipal and industrial
purposes in the metropolitar. Denver area. The rights
of Denver to take and divert such water are alleged to
be in conflict with rights for the use of water stored
in Green Mountain Reservoir and taken through the Green
Mountain power plant for the generation of power. Green
Mountain Dam, Reservoir and Power Plant constitute a unit
of the Colorado-Big-Thompson Project of the United States
Bureau of Reclamation. The controversy over the relative
rights of Denver and the Green Mountain Project are in
litigation in a law suit now pending in the Supreme
Court of the State of Colorado and in another law suit
now pending in the United States District Court for the
District of Colorado. It would be improper for this
Board to attempt to invade the process of the courts