Laserfiche WebLink
<br />"":'" <br />C) <br />C\l <br /> <br />CHA PTER I <br /> <br />GENERAL D~.;;CUSSIONS <br /> <br />'-.. -~ <br /> <br />Land Uses <br /> <br />Distribution of land ownership in Garfield County, which includes <br />1,916,160 acres, is shown in t he following tabulation. <br /> <br />Privately owned <br />Culti vated land <br />Grazing and waste land <br />Mineral land <br />Total <br /> <br />~~ <br />5 <br />18 <br />..1. <br />30 <br /> <br />U. S. Government owned <br />National forests 26 <br />Federal graz~ng land 40 <br />Military and other reserves -l <br />Total 69 <br /> <br />Local and State Government <br />and uilclassified land 1 <br /> <br />About 8 percent of the cultivated land in the county is in the <br />project area. Of the total incoJOO from crops produced on this land <br />64 percent is from sugar beets and potatoes, 28 percent from livest~k <br />feeds, and 8 percent from truck crops. <br /> <br />Irrigation <br /> <br />The first settlers in the project area found irrigation essential <br />for successful farming. The first appropriations of natural flow for <br />irrigation were made in 1882 from streams tributary to the Colorado <br />River. Water cannot practically be diverted directly from the river, <br />except to limited areas of river bottom land, because of the long <br />canals required. Numerous diversions were made from tributary streams, <br />and irrigation demands soon exceeded late-season flows. A continuous <br />increase in the area of land irrigated intensified water shortages. <br />Only the first priority ditches had sufficient water through the entire <br />irrigation season. Construction of the offstream Harvey Gap Dam, about <br />6 miles east of the Rifle Gap Dam site, was the first attempt to al- <br />leviate shortages by storing excess spring run-off. This dam was built <br />to store water from East Rifle Creek diverted by the Grass Valley CanaL <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />Construction of th e Harvey Gap Dam was originally undertaken in <br />1891. The dam, an earth-fill structure 45 feet high, was completed in <br />1895 but failed the same year. Failure occurred against a talus slope <br />on the left abutment. The dam was repaired in 1901. At that time a <br />concrete core. was placed across the washed-out gorge of the old dam and <br />the embankment was restored. Again in 1909 the structure was entirely <br />reconstructed. The dam built then still exists. This dam, about 75 feet <br /> <br />6 <br />