WSP07068

• File Number: 8141
• Description: Fryingpan-Arkansas Project
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 5/15/1961
• Author: US House of Represen
• Title: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs House of Representatives on H R 2206 H R 2207 H R 2208 and H R 2209
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Legislation

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4 , 'FRYING PAN-ARKANSAS PROJECT, COLORADO

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF THE SECRETAnY,
Washington, D.C., May i, 1961.

Bon. WAYNEN.AsPINALL,
Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,
HouI1e of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. ASPINALL: This is in response to your request for an expression of
the views of this Department on H.R. 2200, H.R. 2107, H.R. 2208, and H.R.
2209, bills "To authorize the construction, operation, and maintenance by the
Secretarv of the Interior of the Fryingpun-Arkansas project, Colorauo."
We recommend t.hat one of theRe bills be enacted, provided it is amended
as hereinafter indicated.
Th{'8e bills are II revised version of H.R. 02'29 and other bills, 86th Congress,
on which this Department reported by letter dated March 25, 1900. They
provide for the construction, operatioll, and maintenance by the Secretary
of the Interior of tbe Fryingpan-Arkansas project, Colorado. The purposes
served by tbe project would be the supplying of water for irrigation. lllunicipal,
domestic. and industrial u::;es, generating and transmitting bydroel~l:tric power
and energy, and controlling floods, and for other useful and beneficial purposes
incidental thereto, including recreation and conservation and development
of fish and wildlife.
A rather full description of the engineering features of thiB proposed under-
taking, of the purpo.ses which it wHl serve, and of the henefits which will be
associated with it is readily available in the report of the Department of the
Interior on the project which wn~ submitted on June 0, 1053, to the President
of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives in accordance
with the llrovisions of section 9(a) of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939, and
which was printed ali House Document 187, 83d Congress.
Since House Document 187 was printed, a number of changes in the project
plan have been adopted which can be accommodated under the provisions of
the legislation under consideration. A major modification is the substitution
of Rueeli, and possihly Ashcroft Dam and Reservoir for Aspen Dam and Reservoir.
Other change:,; include th~ elimination of tbe water treatment plant at Pueblo,
a change in the point of diversion for service to Colorado Springs, the alldition
of fllcilities to insure winter operation, and the withdrawal of certain lands
from the Southeast Colorado Conservancy District. The effect of these changes
and of changes in price levels and cost indexes on the physical plan and on the
economic anu financial aspects of the project ure set forth in detail in the
reevaluation statement, FrYingpan-Ark:msas project, Colorado, January 1960,
a COlJY of which was attached to our ldter of March 2ti, 1900, reporting Oll B.B.
92:!9, 86th Congress.
For convenient reference by the committee, the purposes and eXlle(:tell accom-
plishments of tbe project may be summarized thus: t.he project contemplntes
(1) direrting through the project works from the Ronring Fork River Basin
in western Colorado to the Arkansas River Basin in eastern Colorado approxi-
mately 09,000 acre-feet of water per annum; (2) di.erting through the existing'
works of the Twin Lakes Co. about 15,000 Dcre-feet per annum over and above
what that company now divert~; (3) construction of storage on the eastern
slope for the waters thus imported and, in addition, for eastern slope floodwaters
snd winter flows averaging riO,OOO nnd 03,000 acre-feet per annum, respecth.ely.
This plan will provide supplemental irrigation water for 280.000 acres of irri~
gated lnnd in the Arkansas River Valley which do not now have an adequate
water sUIlIlly, anel will supply expanding needs for municipal. domestic. and indus-
trial water on botb sides of the Continental Divide. The project will prevent
a large part of the flood damages along the Arkansas River which OCCllr, under
present condition~, betwen PueblO and John Martin Reservoir. In accomplish~
ing these primary pur Doses of the project, works will be provided for the genera-
tIon of about 409 million kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric energy annually.
As previously noted, the plan described in HOWie Doculllent 187 in..-ol,ed. con-
struction of Aspen Dam and Reservoir on the Ronring Fork Ri.er on the western
slope of the Continental Divide. This reservoir, the cost of which was included
In the cost of the project, was designed to protect the wn ter ~uPllly of present
and prospective western slaDe water users from any impairment through diver-
sion of western slope waters to the Arkansas River Bnsin. Further studies
have revealed that the same project purposes could be served from the proposed

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