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000706 . . Silt Project was dedicated by Congressman Wayne Aspinall on Septem- ber 8, 1967, in a ceremony held at Rifle Gap Dam. A limited water supply was available from Rifle Gap Reservoir for the 1967 irrigation season. Silt Water Conservancy District assumed operation and maintenance of project facilities on January 1, 1968. At present Rifle Gap Reservoir is 25 percent full, containing 2,800 acre-feet of active storage. Construction work on Bostwick Park Project was continued at Silver Jack Dam until winter storms late in November made further work imprac- tical. During the past construction season the contractor completed damsite clearing, stripping, and cutoff trench excavation. About 106,000 cubic yards of selected material were placed in the cutoff trench, bring- ing the dam embankment a few feet above the old river channel. The diver- sion structure and outlet conduit have been substantially completed, and the river will be bypassed through the outlet conduit after the 1968 snow- melt runoff. Embankment construction is expected to be resumed in June and to progress rapidly during the coming construction season. All work for the dam will be completed late in 1969. Due to present fund limitations, it will probably be necessary to delay work on the project water distribution facilities until the spring of 1969. CRSP Reservoirs We begin formal forecasting of the April through July runoff on Jimua.ry 1 and revise this forecast on the first of each subsequent month through June. As you would expect, these forecasts become progressively more reliable as time passes and as more precipitation data becomes available. Moisture conditions this year for the three main tributaries to the Colorado River as indicated by the March 1 snow surveys are nearly normal. The precipitation that fell in the Colorado River Basin for the October- December 1967 periOd was slightly below normal, and for January it was 61 percent of normal, followed by an above-average February. The February storms did not recoup the earlier losses and the March 1 forecast of run- off reflects this condition. Our forecast of April through July runoff of the Colorado River above Glen Canyon Dam is 7 million acre-feet, or 83 pe~ cent of normal. With this kind of flow, Lake Powell should reach elevation 3,544 feet with a content of 9,420,000 acre-feet about July 1, 1968. At this reservoir capacity Lake Powell will be 11 feet above last year's maxi- mum level and 26 feet below ,,~,ted head. The lake is expected to lower about 2 feet through the following fall and winter. We are planning a water year release Of about 8.5 million acre-feet in order to keep ahead of Compact connnitment of a total delivery of 75,000,000 acre- feet to the Lower Basin for the 1963-1972 decade. ~ 2