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<br />. <br /> <br />,'. <br /> <br />001751 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />PACIFIC SOUTHWEST INTER-AGENCY COMMITTEE <br />Quarterly Report for Colorado <br /> <br />68-1 Meeting <br /> <br />Construction <br /> <br />A contract was awarded in December, 1965, for completing the <br />powerplant installation at the toe of Blue Mesa Dam of the Curecanti <br />Unit. The first of the two 30,000-kilowatt hydroelectric generating <br />units in the powerhouse was available for production of conunercial <br />power on September 13, 1967, and the second on November 11, 1967. <br />The lake formed by Blue Mesa Dam has a capacity of 940,800 acre-feet <br />and when filled will cover 14.3 square miles with a shoreline of <br />96 miles. It will be the largest lake in the State of Colorado. <br /> <br />Morrow Point Dam is now substantially completed, and the lake <br />that will form behind it will extend upstream to the toe of Blue <br />Mesa Dam. This thin-arch, double-curvature dam has a free-fall <br />spillway composed of four l5-foot-square openings in the crest of <br />the dam and a stilling basin at the toe of the dam. When water <br />spills from the reservoir, a spectacular free-fall of water will <br />plunge from a height of more than 350 feet into the 60-foot-deep <br />pool in the stilling basin. <br /> <br />An underground powerplant has been excavated in rock about 225 <br />feet in from the canyon wall. The generator roon is 50 feet wide <br />by 202 feet long and the arched roof is 65 to 134 feet high. <br /> <br />Crystal, the third and lowest placed dam of the Curecanti <br />complex, is planned for constructi,::m about one mile aJ:>?ve the upper <br />end of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument. A 6.5- <br />mile access road has been constructed to the damsite. Construction <br />of the dam and powerplant will take place in future years as funds <br />become available. <br /> <br />Advance Planninq <br /> <br />Advance planning investigations leading to construction are <br />being made of the Fruitland Mesa Project just north of the Black <br />Canyon of the Gunnison and of the Savery-Pot Book Project on the <br />Colorado-Wyoming state line. Both of these projects were authorized <br />for construction in September, 1964. Investigations of the Fruit- <br />land Mesa Project are essentially complete. Advance planning for <br />the Savery-Pot Hook Project is expected to be completed in fiscal <br />year 1970. Both projects would provide benefits for irrigation, <br />