BOARD01955

• Board Meeting Date: 3/21/1973
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

the area, as well as having extensive recreation and fish and wildlife
facilities.

I will try to talk briefly about each one of these features because
they are important.

The area below the Narrows reservoir suffered from tremendous floods
in 1965 and 1969. Damage ran into the millions of dollars in this
portion of the valley. The valley's history shows that there have
been,severe flood damages in seven of the last 100 years. In 1969,
the Lower South Platte Diztrict was the distribution ag~ncy for
$350,000 in disaster relief to irrigation facilities a19ne and in
1965 they distributed $550,000. This does not include the damage
t~~t was done to public works such as bridges and otherfacilties.
As a result of all this, flood control rightfully bears the greatest
allocation of the Narrows project's cost. '

The Lower South Platte Valley is intensively farmed. Many farmers
in addition feed livestock and large commercial feedlots are located
in the valley. Most of the grain and forage is consumed locally.
There is a steady stream of trucks bringing feed grains into the area
.for these livestock operations. In recent years, commercial slaugh-
tering of livestock has become an established industry. There are
plants located in Fort Morgan, Brush and Sterling. Sugar beets have
been processed for many years in the service area and this industry
continues to be an important part of the local economy. The Great
Western Sugar Company and the packing plant at Sterling have commit-
ted themselves to purchase water from t~e Narrows ~eservoir.

;:,,:

Fort Morgan, Brush and Sterling rely almost exclusively on wells for
their municipal water supplies. They are concerned' about the quality
and stability of these wells. They are also aware of the growing
national interest in dispersing the country's population and they
have made studies showing substantial increased demands for water in
their areas in the corning years. As a result of this, municipalities
and industries alone have requested 27,367 acre-feet,of water from
the project. This constitutes about 28% of its annual supply.

The districts that are going to be repaying the irrigatiop, municipal
and industrial allocation of cost have actual commitments in hand to
purchase more than 160,000 acre-feet of water from the project. It
is apparent that the available water supply'will have to be prorated.
Our district has been at work on this for some time now. It is not
an 'easy thing to do. This is a booklet that sets out all the

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