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t...--- . 001982 WATER PROJECT INCLUDED IN WILDERNESS HEARING By Dick Prouty FROH THE DENVER POST SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1970 \ I A major portion of a $100 million Denver Water Department project will be part of public hearings that begin Wednesday on the proposed Eagles Nest Wilderness Area. The Eagle-Piney collectior system is part of a long-established, long-range Roberts Turmel-Dillon Reservoir program to collect about 100,000 acre feet of water on the Western Slope and bring it to metropolitan Denver. The Denver project is outside the present boundaries of the 7l,785-acre wilderness proposed by the Forest Service northwest of Dillon, Colo., but is partly within boundaries recommended by citizen groups which have proposed adding 53,000 acres to the wilderness. SAFEGUARDS CITED The Wilderness Act of 1964 permits development of water from such areas and ~ says ecological and environmental safeguards shall be taken in such instances. Construction of the northern major portion of the collection.system of the Eagle-Piney project would require roads and heavy equipment at the edge of or in the proposed wilderness area expansion. Public hearings on the proposed wilderness area changes are scheduled at 9 a.m., Thursday at Frisco, Colo., and Oct. 12 in Building 56, Denver Federal Center. The Denver Water Department has spent more than $600,000 on the Eagle-Piney, James Ogilvie, department manager, says. Surveys, acquisition of water rights and land and othe: work including extensive geological test drilling have been done since January 1957, when the department's plans were filed with the state engineer. ~- The key to the system that features 35 miles of tunnels, more than a dozen ..___jiyersion works and about 5 miles of covered canals on both sides of 10,603-foot Vail Pass is the 8-mile long Vail Pass Tunnel. I UNDERGROUND It passes under the south end of the wilderness lands. Water collected from streams on both sides of Vail Pass would be pooled at about the 9,375 foot level at Black Gore Creek, close to where Interstate 70 will be built. The water would then be run through the tunnel under the Gore Range and spill into Ten HUe Creek just west of Frisco. From there it would go into Dillon Reservoir, then into the 23-mile-Iong Roberts Tunnel under the Continental Divide, into the North Fork of the South Platte River and into the Denver system at Waterton. The "northside" collection system is composed of a series of tunnels which open to collect waters from Gore, Bighorn, Pitkin, Booth, Middle and Red.Sandstone Creeks, Piney River ann Meanow Creek.