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<br />,..... <br />,'. <br /> <br />L/";I <br />~ <br /> <br />-- <br /> <br />Existing Water and Related Land Resources Development <br /> <br />Existing consumptive uses of the waters of the Yampa basin is about 175,000 <br />acre-feet comprising about 17 percent of the Yampa River's average annual <br />flow of 1,051,920 acre-feet at the Maybell gage. The amount that flows out <br />of the basin into the Green River totals about 1,567,000 acre-feet in an <br />average year. Some of this water could be used within the basin for irriga- <br />tion and other purposes, if storage facilities were available to store the <br />late season runoff. <br /> <br />r <br />,. <br /> <br />Steamboat Lake on Willow Creek (a tributary of the Elk River north of Steam- <br />boat Springs) with a storage capacity of 23,060 acre-feet, provides for <br />fishery, recreation and cooling at the Craig and Hayden steam-electric power- <br />plants. Elkhead Reservoir, recently constructed on Elkhead Creek northeast <br />of Craig, was built for recreational and fishing use and for temporary stor- <br />age of cooling water for the Craig and Hayden steam-electric powerplants. <br />Table 1 lists all reservoirs in the basin with over 5,000 acre-feet of stor- <br />age. Numerous smaller reservoirs provide water mostly for livestock and <br />irrigation purposes. <br /> <br />Table 1 <br /> <br />Existing Reservoirs with Storage Capacities <br />Exceeding 5,000 Acre-feet <br />Yampa River Basin <br /> <br />Reservoir <br /> <br />Elkhead <br /> <br />Pearl Lake <br /> <br />Steamboat Lake <br /> <br />Lake Catamount <br /> <br />Yamcolo <br /> <br />Stillwater <br /> <br /> Total <br />Stream Capacity Purpose <br /> (acre-fee t) <br />Elkhead 13,390 Fi shery, Recreation, St eam-elec tr ic <br /> power <br />Lester 5,660 Fishery, Recreation <br />Willow 23,060 Fishery, Recreation, Steam-electric <br /> power <br />Yampa 7,400 Fishery, Recreation, Domestic <br />Bear 9,000 Fishery, Irrigation, Recreation, <br /> Steam-electric power, Domestic <br />Bear 6,390 Irrigation, Recreation <br /> <br />Ground water occurs throughout the area, but the quantity, quality, and avail- <br />ability are generally believed to preclude sustained large-scale use. Extrac- <br />tion of a large volume of water from any of the known aquifers would soon <br />exhaust the supply. The future exploitation of ground water would appear to <br />be limited to its present use of low-yielding wells and springs for livestock <br />and rural or small community domestic use. <br /> <br />12 <br />