WSP06228

• File Number: 8131.600
• Description: Southeastern Colorado Water conservancy District - SECWCD
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 1/1/1976
• Title: Annual Report 1975 - The Future of The Arkansas Valley is Its Water - The Future of Its Water is the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Annual Report

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GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT

Colorado State Statutes provide the District shall
be under the direction of a Board of Directors repre-
senting the area covered by the District. The Court
Order creating the Southeastern Colorado Water Con-
servancy District Ruled that each of the nine Counties
in the District would have two appointed Directors,
with the exception that one person would represent
that portion of Peowees and Kiowa Counties within
the District. Other Counties represented 8re: Chaffee,
Fremont, El Paso, Pueblo, Otero, Crowley and Bent.
The members appointed to the Board are obli-
gated to carry out not only the provisions of the State
Statutes. but are also bound by such other agreements
and contracts as are entered into by the District in the
conduct of water business in the interest of the present
and future citizens within the confines of the Con-
servancy District.
Each year the members of the Board ?f Directors
elect a. slate of Officers at the May meetlllg, and on
May 15, 1975, the Board re-eleeted the following to
serve for the ensuing year:

President-Thomas W. MeCurdy-Olney Springs
V ice President - Roy D. Cooper - Las Animas
Secretary - George E. Everett - Salida
Trcasur~r - Leon C. Hook - Canon City
Assistant Secretary-Treasurer-.charles L. Thom-
son - Pueblo

The Board of Directors meet monthly, at the
District Offices 905 Highway 50 West, Pueblo, Colo-
rado and all m~etings are held on the third Thursday
of e;ch month at 10:00 a.m., unless the Board, by
majority vote, elects to. change the date, or the .place
Of both. Visitors and members of the news media are
alwayg cordi all V invited to attend the Board meetings,
and the Directors are pleased with the large number
of such persons who attend.
At the Board of Directors meeting on August 21,
1975, President McCurdy declared the Office of Vice
President vacant. due to the death of Roy Cooper.
Director Keith L Webb, of La Junta, was unanimously
elected V ice President. On September 30, 1975, the
Honorable Matt J. Kikel, District Judge of Pueblo,
appointed Mr. Alvin Spady, of Bent County to succeed
Mr. Roy D. Cooper, who passed away unexpecte~ly
on his farm August 12. Mr. Spady has served With
distinction in many Water Organizations in the Valley,
and has been a long-time farmer, rancher Bnd feeder.
In 1975 the members of the Colorado General
Assemhly passed an Act which provides that the Pre-
siding Judge over Water Conservancy Districts. s~all
stagger the terms of Offices! and instead of aPl:'omtmg
all of the Directors for two years, shall appomt one-
third for one year, one-third for two years and one-

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third for four years, and thereafter for a term of four
years. ] udge Kikel will implement the change at the
Swearing-In Ceremony in April 1976. The Act also
provides for an increase in compensation to the Di-
rectors at the discretion of the District Judge. The
present amount was established in 1937! and no at-
tempt has been made to amend it, indicating the ded-
ication and sincerity of the many members of the
Boards of Directors of the Conservancy Districts in
Colorado who have sacrificed man\' hours of their
own time and Illany of their own doll~rs.

TESTIMONY BEFORE CONGRESS

The Southeastern Colorado Water Cunservancy
District is the Legal Agency for the Fryingpan-Arkan-
sas Project, having entered into a Contract with the
United States on January 21, 1965, to repay, with
interest. the assigned reimbursable costs of the com-
pleted Project. As such, the Board of Directors of the
District has a primary responsibility to see the Project
completed at the earliest possible date, to keep the
cost to an absolute. minimum, and have a Water Man-
agement Program which will accomplish the things
authorized hy the Congress in 1962.
Each year the members of the Board of Directors
carefully review the Budget recommended to the Con-
gress by the Administration. and! after consultation
with Officials from other Water Organizations through-
out the United States, and the affected Agencies, do
adopt an Official Statement which is presented before
the Appropriation Subcommittees of Congress at their
Annual Public Hearings.
In his Budget Message for FY 1976, President
Gerald Ford recommended an appropriation of
$42,216,000.00 to caver the costs of construction and
operation of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project for the
transitional Fiscal Year, extending frolll July 1.. 1975
through September 30, 1976. This amount was the
largest single amount ever recommended for the Proj-
ect by a President, and compares to $27,730,000.00 for
FY 1975, and the previous high of $38,515,000.00 for
FY 1974.

The Congress of the United States approved the
amount requested by President Ford, and he signed
the Appropriations Bill into Law Decemher 26, 1975.
The funds permitted the United States Bureau of
Reclamation's Fryingpan-Arkansas Project Office in
Pueblo. to award construction contracts on several re-
maining features of the Project, and permitted con-
tinued construction on those already underway.
Supporting testimony was adopted by the Board
of Directors, and presented before the Arkansas River
Basin Interstate Committee at their Annual Meeting,
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in March, for consideration and
adoption. The Arkansas River Basin Interstate Com-
mittee consists of five representatives from the States
of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Colora-
do, each of whom was appointed by the Governor of

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