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ij00947 ~. . .;' Closed Basin Division San Luis Valley Project, Colorado Background and Status, March 11, 1981 We are pleased to report the status of the Closed Basin Division to the Board this morning. The Closed Basin Division was originally authorized by Public Law 92-514 on October 20, 1972. That authorization was amended by Public Law 96-375 on October 3, 1980, which allowed the cost ceiling on the project to be increased to $57,139,000 based on October 1979 prices. The current indexed cost is now over $69 million. In addition, that amended legislation allowed the project to be modified by the plans shown in the Definite Plan Report and removed the restriction that existing irrigation and domestic wells within the project boundary could be drawn down not more than 2 feet. Active support by the State of Colorado and the Rio Grande Water Conservation District was instru- mental in affecting this amendatory legislation which has allowed the Divison to move forward. AS you may be aware, a Final Environmental Statement was filed with the Environ- mental Protection Agency in August 1979 and the Definite Plan Report was approved in November 1979. A mitigation plan for ':he project was not completed at that time; however, the Department allowed us tn file that statement pending collection and analysis of new data. We met with ~he Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday and are making progress on a revised mit;..gation package. A supplement to the Final Environmental Statement will be prepa::ed to discuss changes in projected impacts and the revised mitigation plan. This supplement must be filed prior to construction of Stage 3. A draft supplement is scheduled to be filed in December 1981 and a final filed in July 1982. We expect that concurrence from appropriate congr"ssional committees will be required prior to implementation of the revised mitigation plans because these plans deviate from those included in the authorizing legislation. AS you may Engineer. office. be aware, Mr. Lindell Elfrink has been ~ssigned as Project Construction He and 22 other staff people are now assigned to the Alamosa field progress to date includes completion and monitoring of observation wells for Stage 1-2 for preproject conditions, completed designs of the first phase of Stage 1-2 well field, progress on design data collection for the conveyance channel for Stage 1-2, and data acquired and analyzed for project impacts. Land acquisition for Stage 1-2 is also underway, with 25 well sites presently acquired. The site for labortary and shop has been acquired with completion of the building scheduled for May 1982. Additional aqUifer test wells and pump testing this summer will provide data for designs of the Stage 3 well field. An agreement with the USGS is being finalized for that agency to perform computer modeling for design of the Stage 3 well field, to refine the computer model, and to continue monitoring-of the aquifers. ,,<+-:)/'<:, r,v " \. ..)