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<br />Gunnison salinity contrel investigation. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />MR. THORNTON: Mr. Chairman, and members ef the beard, ladies and <br />gentlemen, I was asked to make a shert repert on what the Seil Cen- <br />servation Service is doing in the Lewer Gunnison River Basin en salinity <br />centre1. We get into. this field of endeavor through the Ce10rade River <br />Salinity Act called P. L. 93-320, in ceeperation with the Bureau ef <br />Reclamation. We entered into an agreement with the Bureau of Reclamatien <br />in 1975 specifying seme of the things that we weuld do and some ef the <br />coerdinatien that would be done between us and the Bureau. We're in the <br />final stages of a study in the Grand Valley area. We plan to. have all <br />the field inventeries dene this summer and have a repert eut by September. <br />The study here in the Lower Gunnison area will be quite similar. The <br />objectives of this study are to. determine the present centribution ef <br />.salt leading frem the irrigated and the privately ewned upland areas <br />associated with this. We want to find eut hew much salt is ceming from <br />the irrigated areas and private lands around there. Second, we want to <br />determine what are the opportunities er hew can we reduce this salt <br />leading to. the river from these areas. And third, we want to see if we <br />can determine what are the opportunities for reducing erosien, sediment <br />and what not from the irrigated lands and the upland areas. <br /> <br />To. do this, we are centacting farmers in the area. We expect to make <br />about three theusand different centacts. We have a staff right new ef <br />nine people working en this. We have a preject leader here in Montrese. <br />We have four technicians in Montrose and feur technicians in Delta <br />working on this study. We're inventerying items like what the soil type <br />is, what the intake is, how fast the water gees into. the seils, the <br />present lengths of the runs, the width of the field, and what is the <br />source ef the water. We're also determining the ameunt ef water being <br />used, hew many times a year de,they irrigate and a number of ether <br />management perameters. <br /> <br />While we're doing interviews with the farmers, we're trying to. come up <br />with what are some ef the petentials fer conservatien treatment that ' <br />can impreve their efficiency, such as does the field need leveling; are <br />they in need ef irrigation field ditches; irrigatien pipelines; are <br />there irrigatien water management devices such as measuring devices for <br />the water. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />After we cellect all this data, what we intend to. de is to. evaluate it <br />to. where we can say to this farm, you're putting en so much water a <br />year, so much of that water is going into the seil profile and being <br />lest, as we call it, er deep perce1atien, so. much ef the water is running <br />eff the end, the tail water. We're geing to. have this data by each <br />individual field. We're geing to summarize it by all the fields under <br />one particular ownership er farm ownership. We can tell each farmer <br />what he has. Then we're also planning to. summarize this data by the <br />different laterals and different canals so. we'll have seme idea of what <br />is happening in the area. After we complete eur eva1uatien, what we <br />hepe te.be able to. tell each individual farmer is that if yeu change <br />yeur eperatien by this, if you level this particular field over here, <br />if you put an irrigatien line or an irrigatien canal at the head ef <br /> <br />-35- <br />