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AGENDA ITEM
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#8
ACTING DIRECTOR'S REPORT
March 13, 1963
Agenda Item #8a, Closed Basin Salvage Project Meeting
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s.
The Acting Director has conducted three educational
meetings in the San Luis Valley to acquaint people in the Valley
with the Board's position on the Closed Basin Salvage Project.
The first meeting was held on January 17th in Alamosa to present
the project report at a combined meeting of the Conejos Water
Conservancy District and the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy
District. The results of this meeting were, in my opinion,
encouraging.
Since that time resolutions have been received from
both Conservancy Districts endorsing the Board's position on this
project and urging the state to seek authorizing legislation
in-corporating all of the provisions set forth as conditions
neces-sary for acceptance of the project report by the State of Colorado •
.
On
February 9th a similar informational meeting was
conducted for the membership of the Rio Grande Water Users
Asso-ciation in Monte Vista, Colorado.
A detailed presentation of
the project report was made at the meeting, however, no formal
action was taken by the Board except that a substitute proposal
to curtail surface diversions was rejected at this meeting.
In
my opinion this meeting was productive and well worthwhile.
After the presentation a number of questions regarding the
con-struction and operation of the project were asked and answered.
It is significant to note that the tenor of this meeting was
considerably different from the meeting held on February 3, 1962,
in that the questions asked, and the comments made, were all
constructive.
The reception was quite cordial and i t appeared
that the membership of the Rio Grande Water Users Association were
sincere in their efforts to understand the project so that i t
could be evaluated by them intelligently.
The third meeting under this heading has not been held
at this time (March 7, 1963) but will be held the evening of
March 11, 1963, with a group of small ditch owners above Monte
Vista. An oral report will be made on the impressions gained at
this meeting.
Agenda Item #Sb, Trinidad Project Progress
At the time of this writing
,
little specific
informa-tion on the Trin;dad Project progress is available. Generally i t
may be stated that agreement has been reached among the affected water users in the Trinidad Project area regarding the internal
operations of the project after construction. It may be stated
here that the staff of the Water Conservation Board has taken the
position that the internal operations of the project is beyond the scope and duties of this Board unless help is requested by the
people in the project area. To date the staff has limited its
participation in project operating criteria to those broad elements in the criteria which will effect the Arkansas Valley Ditch
Asso-ciation and the Arkansas River Compact. We have not deviated from
the position taken by the Board in its comrnents before the
respec-tive Committees of Congress in authorization hearings. I t is my
understanding at this time that the detailed intra-project oper-ating criteria are not in conflict with the provisions set forth in comments before the Congressional Committees at authorization hearings.
Agenda Item #8c, Arkansas River Compact Administration
During the past several years controversy has existed between the water users generally upstream and generally downstream
from John Martin Reservoir. In analyzing these controversies i t
appears that they have developed from alleged differences in
inter-pretation of the Arkansas River Compact from year to year. No
standard operating procedure has ever been developed for the
oper-ation of John Martin Darn. Such an operating procedure would
involve interpretation of the Compact by the Arkansas River Compact
Administration. At the request of the Acting Director of this
Board a committee has been appointed to develop standard operating procedures which will be used by the Secretary of the Compact
Administration for the operation of John Martin Darn during those periods when such operation is a function of the Compact
Adminis-tration. Some river budget studies must be completed before these
standard operating procedures can be completed and formalized. These studies are in progress at this time by the staff of this
Board. The objective of the operating procedures is to eliminate,
so far as possible, the wastage of water that occurs under the
present method of operation. It is the feeling of the
Administra-tion that the provisions of the contract insofar as the adminis-trative discretion of the Compact Administration is concerned are such that i t is within the purview of the Compact Administration to develop operating principles which can well result in the
saving, for beneficial use, of considerable amounts of flood flows which are now lost to the downstream reaches of the river.
LRK: lk 3/7/63
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