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<br />I <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />directors of the Power Company which provided that the decree itself <br />would contain language that would prohibit the use of the water for <br />transbasin diversion. That stipulation was presented to the full <br />board of the district. (There was in the meantime a new member <br />appointed from Rio Blanco County. He came in and said, "No, we \'lant <br />to keep the water in the White River.") As the result of \vhich the <br />full board of the district declined at that point to enter into <br />that agreement. The net result was five years of litigation before <br />we got to the Appellate Court anc I terminated my services for <br />Rocky Mountain Power Company about five years later. But I did not <br />enter my appearance until after Rocky Mountain Power Company had <br />agreed that it would not use the water for transbasin diversions. <br />Since that time, of course, because of the protracted litigation and <br />during the period that I am familiar with, which terminated in 1966, <br />my familiarity since that time is somewhat limited. During that <br />period of time it became necessary to go back and re-exp10rc that <br />possibility. With the increase in cost that occurred during the <br />intervening period,the drain on the resources of the Power Company <br />caused by that protracted litigation,it became necessary to look at <br />that possibility again. But I think it should be made perfectly clear <br />that there was an offer, a definite offer, which can be established <br />not to use the waters to advance any transbasin diversion. <br /> <br />Secondly, in connection with the use of that water by exchange, the <br />studies that were made by Phil Smith at that time indicated, and I <br />think this could probably be supported if the engineers would want <br />to restudy the matter, that not more than about 28,000 acre-feet <br />of water can be used by exchange. Because there simply isn't that <br />much water in the higher levels. <br /> <br />The third point I would like to make concerns the fact that some <br />people have indicated that the creation of this reservoir would dry <br />up the South Fork below the reservoir. There has not bcen a project <br />built since 1944 that involved federal lands that has not had as a <br />part of the license to use those federal lands a restriction that <br />required releases of minimum flows. In the case of Rocky Mountain <br />Power Company, a memorandum of understanding was reached with the <br />Forest Service under which there would be released a minimum or base <br />flow, not a minimum flow, a base flow which was in excess of the <br />minimum flow. And recently the fish biologists pointed out that the <br />Fryingpan River below Ruedi Reservoir has been improved as a fishing <br />stream as the result of the creation of Ruedi Reservoir because it <br />has eliminated the wide fluctuations and the extremely low flows as <br />well as the flood flows. And I think that that argument should be <br />laid to rest. <br /> <br />I have only touched on those subjects very briefly because there has <br />been so much misstatement concerning them that I think it deserves <br /> <br />-3- <br />