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<br />acre-feet per year of water is moved through the Harold D. Roberts Tunnel to the Front <br />Range. <br />In the 1960s, the Bureau of Reclamation constructed the Fryingpan-Arkansas <br />Project.33 This project was expected to bring about 72,200 acre.feet of water per year from <br />the Fryingpan River on the West Slope to the Arkansas Basin.34 Between 1982 and 1992 <br />actual annual diversions averaged 53,500 acre-feet.35 <br />The City of Colorado Springs has built two significant transrnountain diversion <br />projects moving water out of the Colorado River Basin to the Front Range. The first was on <br />the Blue River. In 1993 the yield of this system was 11,658 acre-feet.36 The Homestake <br />Project which collects West Slope water out of the Eagle River drainage provided 25,900 <br />acre-feet to the Colorado Springs water supply in 1993.37 <br />Only in about the last 25 years have consumptive water uses on the West Slope of <br />.. Colorado begun to increase significantly. In the late 1970s, the long-anticipated development <br />of the oil shale industry at last appeared ready to become a reality. Companies engaged in <br />this development aggressively pursued rights to the substantial quantities of water expected to <br />be needed in support of this apparently massive industry.38 These interests now are <br />concerned with protecting the potential value of these rights, pending their future use - either <br />in oil shale or, more likely, for other purposes. <br />Almost unnoticed in the boom (and bust) of oil shale development was the more <br />gradual but significant growth occurring in many parts of the West Slope related to its scenic <br />and quality-of-life attractions as well as its expanding recreational economy. The town of <br />Aspen led the way, followed by Vail, Steamboat, Telluride, and a collection of areas in <br /> <br />" Frank Milenski, In Ouest of Water (]993). <br /> <br />" Bureau of Reclamation, Water Management of the Arkansas River, Preliminlll)' Draft, 10/5/93 at 2. <br /> <br />3S Id. <br /> <br />.. Personal communication from Philip C. SaIetta, Supervising Resource Engineer, Colorado Springs Utilities, <br />November 2, 1994. <br /> <br />37 Id. <br /> <br />" Colorado Energy Research Institute, Water and Enerl!V in Colorado's Future (Westview Press ]981). <br /> <br />16 <br />