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<br />, <br /> <br />STATEMENT <br />Of <br />James Price <br /> <br />Byers, Colorado <br />AlJiwt 8, 1949 <br /> <br />To Whom It May Concern I <br /> <br />"\ <br /> <br />Why should water of the Kiowa and Bijous be controlled? <br /> <br />1" <br />~ <br />", <br />\ <br /> <br />This article has to do with the Bijous which are similar to the Kiowa <br />creek. The informant has lived all his life on the Bijous and has watched <br />the destruction for the past fifty years. <br /> <br />I have seen valuable hay meadows and pastures of thousands of acres <br />ruined completely. I have known of hundreds of cattle and other livestock <br />washed away. Peoples' lives have been in jeopardy. while their homes were <br />washed away. Millions of dollars worth of railroad property, highway and <br />county bridges have been destroyed. Thousands of miles of fences have been <br />washed down stream with from 40 to 60 per cent sediment water flooding into <br />the South Platte ruining irrigation water with sediment that is a detriment <br />into even Nebraska. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />These streams are sediment-laden and destructive because the soil is a <br />sand and gravel and adobe formation a type that washes easily due to the fall <br />per mile. This fall is estimated all the way from 30 to 60 feet levelling <br />off to from 10 to 15 feet in the flatter country. A series of minor floods <br />happen regularly reaching different points dovmstream, all carrying a certain <br />amount of erosion. Then along comes the "Daddy" flood, sweeping it all with <br />increased amount that it brings along. This rolline, boiling, large flood <br />separates the gravel and sand from the adobe~ The ~a~d stops in the stream <br />making the treacherous quicksartd, and later blows from the bed by the prevail- <br />ing west and northwest winds which accounts for the sand dunes and hills that <br />are on the east side of the streams. The adobe is settled in the flats on the <br />west side to make the rich soil of the Antelope Flats. This land is being <br />developed to pump irrigation. This large flat area has been subjected to big <br />floods through the times which have built up the soil. These flats are <br />roughly five to six miles wide and fifty miles long some 275 square miles on <br />175,000 acres. <br /> <br />^ <br /> <br />;, <br />I' <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />What can be done to stop this awful destruction of sediment laden flood <br />water? I have the Owens reservoir to cite as an example of the kind that <br />would answer our problems if there were enough of them in different sizes. <br /> <br />The Owens dam was put in some sixty years ago by the late C. S. Owens <br />at the mouth of a large draw just before it empties into the Bijou. This <br />reservoir takes care of any flood that happens in this draw. Then it has a <br />feeder ditch that takes water out of the Bijou some four or five miles above <br />for storage. Any sediment is deposited in the bottom of the ditch and ~ery <br />little reaches the reservoir. This sediment is removed from time to time from <br />the ditch. The sediment would not be so much on ditches above or closer to <br />the source as the Owens project is downstream - just above Byers. <br /> <br />-2- <br /> <br />