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. . . CHAPTER II C~MPREHENSIVE PLAN Land ownership A detailed study of the ownership of potential project lands has not been made for this reconnaissance report but will be undertaken as a part of any future investigations. Most of the project lands are believed to be public domain or in State ownership although large areas, particularly in valleys and on river courses, are privately ownedo All of the lands in the service area of the Savannah Butte Canal and most of those under the Wonsits Canal are Indian owned as part of the Hill Creek extension of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. Public domain on which project features would be located has been withdrawn by the Bureau of Reclamation for project use. Water Supply Available water supply Simulated water supply and reservoir operation studies based on records of past streamflows through critical drought periods are considered a rea- sonably conservative basis for estimating future water supplies available with project development. Estimates of water re~uirements for the various project purposes are used to determine the ade~uacy of the available water for the project and to determine the re~uired capacities of water storage and conveyance facilities. Yampa River A continuous record of Yampa River runoff at the Maybell gaging sta- tion is available since 1916 with fragmentary records available during the period 1906-1916. The records of runoff have been published by the Geolog- ical Survey. The record of monthly streamflow was extended to.cover the period 1906 to 1916 by correlations with recorded flows on Green.River and at upstream gaging stations on Yampa River. A summary of the recorded and estimated monthly runoff for the period 1906 through 1961 is given in the table on the follo~ing page. The runoff for this 56-year period averaged about 1,165,000 acre-feet annually 'with a minimum of' 375,000 acre-feet in the extreme drought year of 1934 and a maximum of 2,136,000 acre-feet in 1917. In addition to the low runoff year of 1934, there was a continuous low runoff period extending over the 3 years of 1953-55 which included the second lowest annual runoff,year 1954 when a flow of 522,000 acre-feet occurred. The third lowest runoff year was 1961 when a flow of 629,000 acre-feet occurred. These low runoff years and periods are critical fac- tors in determining the annual storage carryover needs and the dependable water supplies with tolerable shortages that can be developed by the Juni- per project. 28