WSPC04168

• File Number: 8040.950
• Description: Section D General Studies - General Water Studies
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 9/14/1979
• Author: Unknown
• Title: High Plains Study - Six-State High Plains-Ogallala Aquifer Area Study
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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For each of the above, the outcomes or impacts can be measured in t.rins'of
(a) changes in agricultural production, income and employment induced by the change
in available water supplies, both on the farm and in the agribusiness industrial sec-
tor, and (b) the nonagricultural production, income and employment necessary to meet
shortfalls in continued regional economic growth and vitality. Outcomes and 'impacts
will be evaluated and compared at the national, regional. , state and subregional lev-
els. This procedure will allow the High Plains Council and the Secretaries of Com-
merce and Army to develop policies and plans involving combinations of strategies
at the state and subregional level, as appropriate to differing situations and sub-
regions over time.

These are the alternatives as originally presented in the interim report to the
Congress forwarded on January 15, 1979, however, minor modifications have been
made as a result of study developmemt to date.

Regional Basin

The High Plains area extends over parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska,
New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas in the Great Plains land resource region of mid-
continental America as shown on Figure 2. Much of the High Plains is underlain by
the Ogallala Formation, a major aquifer supplying most of the water needs of the
area's large agricultural economy.

The Ogallala Formation is an unconsolidated remnant of vast deposits of
gravel, sand, and silt eroded from the Rockies. Erosion has reduced the area of
the extensive deposits that once covered all of the Great Plains region, leaving
the Ogallala as the principal geologic unit associated with the High Plains today.

The specific area encompassed by this study includes 180 counties in the
six-state region underlain in whole or in part by the Ogallala Formation, an area
of about 225 thousand square miles. As a part of the overall study, the related
economies of nearby cities including Denver, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Kansas City,
Albuquerque, and Lincoln and Omaha must be considered. Peripheral aquifers which
are interrelated with the Ogallala must be taken into account. The interbasin transfer
studies will consider potential sources of water outside the study area.

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Colorado's Basin

The Colorado portion of the Ogallala-High Plains aquifer lies in the east-
central and southeast part of the state in two separate basins. This portion of the
aquifer lies beneath all or part of eleven Colorado counties and covers approxi-
mately 6.9 million acres. The northern Colorado basin lies between the drainages
of the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers and covers a triangular area that could be
described as extending from a point east of Limon in a northeasterly direction to
the Colorado-Nebraska state line at a point a few miles south of Julesburg and
from this same point east of Limon in a southeasterly direction to the Colorado-
Kansas state line southeast of Sheridan Lake. The southern basin which covers
the southeastern part of Prowers County, most of Baca County, and the south-
eastern corner of Las Animas County could best be described as that part of the
state lying southeast of a line running roughly from Cheney Center in a south-

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