BOARD02546

• Board Meeting Date: 1/9/1963
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

The investigation which has been underway for
the longest period of time is the Basin Review
Studies for Flood Control and Water Resources
Development in the South Platte Basin. Initial-
ly we had directed our attention to evaluating
the flood damage potential of the lower basin
below Fort Morgan and the potential flood con-
trol benefits that could be attributed to the I'
Narrows or Weld county sites as a cooperative
study with the Bureau of Reclamation. We pro-
vided the preliminary answers on the flond
control storage requirements and the flood
control benefits to the Bureau in 1961.

i'

We have since directed our attention to
evaluating the problems of the upper basin and
we find at this level of investigation that the
principle damage area in the upper basin is in
the Denver metropolitan region. By the region
I mean, not necessarily Denver itself, but from
Kassler on down to Brighton. We find, however,
that by the revised methodology we have to use
to evaluate the feasibility of a project, that
there are significant shifts in the flood dam-
age potential and the potential flood control
benefits as compared to the study which was
completed in 1945. We find also that in order
to effectively control floods in this region,
the major tributaries must be controlled as
well as the upper main stem which requires
then, if you are to provide flood control works,
construction On the tributaries, channelization
through the entire region, or control of the
upper main stem and the tributaries.

We find that it is going to be very diffi-
cult to achieve feasibility from a flood con-
trol standpoint alone because the benefits do
not quite equate with the prospective costs of
improvements in this era of high-cost improve-
ments. However, we are continuing to investi- I'.'
gate this problem to evaluate the future
growth potential, to evaluate potential future
benefits to see whether we can establish feasi-
bility for some measures of flood control in
the upper basin. vie feel, however, that the