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<br />2 <br /> <br />II. STUDY AREA DESCRIPTION <br />Study Area <br />The Town lies within the San Juan r~ountains in southwestern Colorado. <br />The headwaters of the San Miguel River lie to the east of the Town at an ele- <br />vation of over 13,000 feet. The San Miguel River flows along the base of the <br />alluvial fan of Cornet Creek upon lihich much of the Town was built. The study <br />area location is shown in Figure 1. The approximate floodplain as defined in <br />the 1978 study is also shown in Figure 1. <br />Extens i ve modifi cati ons to the fl ood fri nge areas have occurred since <br />1977. The River has been channelized at some locations, some bridges have <br />been added and some have been removed, and commercial and residential struc- <br />tures have been built. The majority of development has occurred in the flood <br />fri nge area but some constructi on has occurred in the floodway (see Fi gure 2 <br />for a defi ni ti on sketch of the flood\"lay concept). <br />The San r~igue1 River is a mountain stream liith an average slope of 0.8 <br />percent (43 feet per mile). The channel bed and banks are predominantly large <br />gravels and cobbles. Vegetation along the channel is riparian and consists of <br />wetland grasses, willows and some pine or spruce trees. Appendix B contains <br />some photographs of the study area. Appendix A contains some photographs of <br />the study area. The drainage areas of the San Miguel River in the vicinity of <br />Telluride are shown in Figure 3 and the drainage areas are given in Table 1. <br />Tab 1 e 1 also contains the peak di scharge for the 10-, 50-, 100-, Cind 500-year <br />flows. <br />