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<br />supply of water for, irrigation were found to be antiquated and even harmful. The good news, <br />however, was that federal assistance was available to fix the problem - the irrigators <br />themselves would not be responsible for making changes. In fact, the even better news was <br />that the "improvements" that would be made to their water delivery systems would actually <br />make things better for the irrigators themselves since the water would be better "managed": <br />leaky portions of the main canals would be lined; check structures (gates regulating the depth <br />and flow of water in a section of the canal) would be built; new diversions structures for <br />laterals would be constructed and the old dirt laterals would be replaced with piping; trash <br />cleaners would be installed to keep the water free from branches. leaves, and other debris; <br />water delivered through the pipes would be under pressure, allowing irrigators to install more <br />modem irrigation equipment such as surge systems or sprinklers that could take advantage of <br />this pressure. Moreover, funds would be available through the Department of Agriculture to <br />cost-share on-farm improvements that would reduce drainage. <br />But things are rarely what they seem. The original plans for reducing the loadings of <br />salts from the Grand Valley were considerably scaled back. [*describe] <br />The need for agreement among the irrigators within each of the systems that would be <br />altered under the salinity control program revealed some of the deep splits that existed <br />between water users on the same laterals, between some of the water users and management <br />of their water supply organizations, between different organizations, and, of course, between <br />the local community and the federal govemment. The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal <br />agent for carrying out much of the salinity control program, wanted a single written <br />agreement with each of the organizations within which improvements were to be made. <br />Such agreement proved impossible to achieve within the Grand Valley Irrigation Company <br />and was not easily obtained from the three entities receiving water from the Government <br />Highline Canal: the Grand Valley Water Users Association, the Palisade Irrigation District, <br />and the Mesa County Irrigation District. <br />While the main canals are owned and managed by the water supply organizations in <br />the Grand Valley, the laterals generally are owned by the water users. Once water is <br />delivered to the diversion structure for the lateral, management of that water is left up to the <br />users. In most cases, users on a lateral are not well organized. Only in the Grand Valley <br /> <br />12 <br />