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<br />002001 <br /> <br />Initial Information Package <br />Williams Fork Hydroelectric Project <br />FERC Project No. 2204 <br /> <br />2.0 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT SETTING <br /> <br />2.1 Location <br /> <br />Williams Fork Reservoir is located on the Williams Fork River near its <br />confluence with the Colorado River at Parshall, Colorado (Figure 1.1.1). <br />Williams Fork Reservoir is located approximately 100 road miles west of Denver, <br />Colorado, on the western slope of the Continental Divide. The elevation at <br />Williams Fork Reservoir is approximately 7,800 feet. <br /> <br />2.2 Drainage Basin <br /> <br />The Williams Fork drainage basin ranges in elevation from 7,800 feet at the <br />reservoir to 13,000 feet at the mountain peaks. The drainage area of the Williams <br />Fork basin is approximately 230 square miles. On average, 30 inches of <br />precipitation falls in the upper Williams Fork basin every year. Nearly all of the <br />streamflow in the basin originates from snowmelt. Approximately 60 percent of <br />the precipitation eventually ends up as surface streamflow. <br /> <br />2.3 Watershed Description <br /> <br />The Project area is in Middle Park, the smallest of three intermountain basins that <br />form a chain through the central part of the Southern Rocky Mountains in <br />Colorado.7 Middle Park is encircled by the Front Range to the east, the Gore <br />Range to the west, and the Williams Fork Mountains to the southwest. To the <br />north, a low point in the Rabbit Ears Range-Muddy Pass-separates Middle <br />Park from North Park. Unlike North and South Park, which are broad, nearly <br />level, essentially treeless basins, the topography of Middle Park is much rougher <br />and the interior of the basin is broken into secondary basins by spurs of the <br />adjacent ranges and by isolated, interior ridges. <br /> <br />The Project area includes one of these interior divides, a minor, northwest- <br />southeast trending ridge locally known as Cedar Ridge, which rises to a maximum <br />elevation of 8400 feet. The Williams Fork River flows through an unnamed <br />valley (herein, the Williams Fork Valley) immediately to the southwest of the <br />ridge and is dammed where it flows through a gap in Cedar Ridge. The valley is <br />partially inundated by the Williams Fork Reservoir. <br /> <br />At the gap in Cedar Ridge, the Williams Fork River originally raced through a <br />constricted canyon cut into metamorphic bedrock. The narrow confines of the <br />canyon were an ideal dam location and the first Williams Fork dam was <br /> <br />7 Benedict, A. D. <br />1991 The Sou/hem Rockies. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. <br /> <br />8 <br />