Laserfiche WebLink
<br />C\J <br />'-\J <br />~ <br />-t <br /> <br />6. POWER. <br /> <br />lion kwh. is predicted; and the eastern Colorado area where load forecasts <br />indicate that some power will be required from outside areas. The Report <br />concludes that the load growth of the "western region" in the next 25 <br />years will exceed the total output of all potential hydro-electric plants <br />in the Colorado River Basin. <br /> <br />Note (10): The Report mentions the Colorado-Big Thompson <br />project, under construction, and estimates its depletions after completion, <br />and mentions the potential Blue-South Platte and Gunnison-Arkansas projects, <br />giving est1mates of their depletions and,construction coets. But no data <br />are shown regarding either the benefitted acreages or the east-slope power <br />production of the three projects. Accord1ne to a report entitled: "Power <br />in Relation to the Post-war Economy of the Colorado-Wyoming Region," dated <br />Sept. 1944, the power output of the three projects will range from 3,300 <br />to 3,800 million kwh. in years of normal runoff, and from 2,000 to 2,400 <br />million kwh. in a year of minimum water supply. The potentialities for <br />the production of electric power by such projects, initiated for the pri- <br />mary purpoee of irrigation, are a necessary part of their over-all eco- <br />nomic feasibility, and the potential power markets of eastern Colorado <br />must be served, first, by the power produced by such dual-purpose projects. <br /> <br />7. PRESENT 1RRIDATION. <br /> <br />Present irrigation in the Colorado River Basin, according to <br />the Report, involves' 3,208,900 acres of land. The word "present" as used <br />in the Report, includes lands yet to be irrigated by projects under con- <br />struction and authorized in the Upper Basin, and includes allowances for <br />so-called "irrigable" lands in the Lower Basin in addition to lands actual- <br />ly irrigated in 1943. <br /> <br />The "present" iITigated acreages shown in the Report, segre- <br />gated by Upper and Lower Basins and the States of each Basin, together <br />with the "allowances" made by the Bureau of Reclamation, are sUlllIllB.rized <br />in the follOWing table, which also shows comparable data (not given in the <br />Report) taken from the 1940 U. S. Census of Irrigation in 1939. <br /> <br />(10) <br />