BOARD02177

• Board Meeting Date: 5/5/1952
• Description: Minutes and Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

71

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(g) ~ays and means be sought whereby livestock ranchers,
dispossessed' because of reservoir storage in the Upper Gunnison
River Basin, may retain their respective range ri:hts on the
Eational Forest or T'ublic dOr:1ain, and be perr:1itted to transfer
such ri:;hts ':lithout any cut in livestock numbers due to such
transfer to ne1~ units 1"[hich may be acquired lTJ them in the area.

(h) In the enforced acquisition of private property by the
United States for Gunnison River Basin lli~its of the Colorado River
Storace Project ~lan, consideration be given by the government
to protection aeainst excessive increases in income taxes which
may rest'lt.

3. That the Board, in submitting further corrr.ents and recomJ:'enda-
tions to the Bureau of Reclamation and the Secretary of the Interior
on behalf of the State of Colorado, and, where pertinent, in urging
Congressional approval of the Colorado River Storage Projp-ct and .
Participating Projects plan and the authorization for construcGion of
units thereof, and otherwise, support the recommendations contained in
this report.

4. That the Board, in the event it should disapprove or make
material changes in the Gunnison River Basin plan and recommendations
contained in this report, or the Bureau of Re~lamation should refuse to
accept, for one reason or another, the plan of development for storage
in the Gunnison River Basin, apprpved by this report, re-refer the
matter to this Committee.

Item 2 on the ar:encta "Consider3tion of Colorado cOl1L'1lents on Department
of Asriculture's Fountain River Watershed iteport" was then taken up bo' the
Board.

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The Director stated that the Departr:1ent of Agriculture, through the
National Forest Service, had submitte1 to the COlorado ~ater Conservation
Board for review and cor:nnents its . plan for yeatershed developnent in the
basin of -:;he Fountain River, a tributary of the Arkansas River. He said
that this plan involved various land and water treatment practices and pro-
grams carried on by the DepartMent of Acriculture. Also, that among other
things, the report proposed the construction of a large nUmber of small re-
tardation dams scattered throughout the watershed, and that the report did
not contain either sufficient information and detailed engineering studies
to indicate the depletion which would be caused by these numerous small struc-
tures in stream flow of the Fountain and Arkansas Rivers or their effect on
existing water rights, He also pointed out that it was necessary for Colorado
to determine whether the construction and operation of such reseI'\'oirs would
interfere with the obligations of Colorado under the Arkansas River Compact
between Colorado and Kansas. The report did not supply sufficient information
for this purpose.

The Director recomrnanded that the Colorado Water Conservati.on Board
object to the proposed plan of the Department of Agriculture for the Fountain
River watershed until such necessary information had been supplied by the