Barnard Letter to Nelson, 1957-07-08

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BARNARD AND BARNARD JOHN B. BARNARD

DUANE L . BARNARD

Mr. William

H.

ATTORNEYS AT LAW GRANBY, COLORADO

July 8, 1957

Grand Junction, Colorado Dear Bill:

In line with yours of the 6th, I return you herewith the data you sent me with that letter. I am leaving shortly for Glenwood Springs and will mail this from there.

I might say that I am going to Glenwood, among other things, for two purposes: first, to talk to Judge Darrow and see if .

I can get him to continue the pending adjudication proceed- ' ings in Water District #38, to give us time to complete our

lildp ·a-net-statement- - -

~

~

c:ree

-map and statement in the State Engineer's office in line with the statute, tile a statement of claim thereof in the pending proceedings, present our evidence and obtain a con-ditional decree; and second, for the purpose of permitting Smith and myself to take a short preliminary look at the

site itself. As you know, I have for a long time harped on the proposition that that filing must be made and that decree obtained; and I am hopetul that, at the- July 16th meeting of the Board of Directors, arrangements will be made

so to do. At least that is going to be my recommendation and it will be joined in by Phil Smith.

I was interested in Ed Johnson's letter to you. In the first place, I am not a convert of Ed Johnson's to the doctrine that filings should be made and decrees obtained for Western Slope water. In 1954 when I made the filing on the Ute Park Reser-voir of the Parshall Project, I told Johnson about it and also told him that I hoped that the Colorado River District would follow with other filings. He became enthusiastic about such filings at that time and continuously thereafter preached that doctrine.

I was also much interested in the minutes of the meeting of the so-called Water Resources Committee of the State Chamber of Commerce. Apparently that organization is proceeding on

the theory that the more people they can get to talk about the Colorado water problem, the easier a solution will be.

I have said to you before, and I repeat it, that probably

the greatest difficulty we have in attempting to solve this so-called East Slope-West $lope controvers is the fact that only about one out of every thousand people who talk about

it, knows what he is talking about. I1 _{the minutes of this}

meeting l find the following statement:

"Western slope representatives on the committee pointed out that local feeling is not in opposi-tion to transmountain diversion, but it is

in-sistent that high altitude compensating reservoirs

be provided in order that the water requirements

of the local areas might be assured. It was noted

that the 'Big Thompson Project includes such a

com-pensating reservoir, and current plans for the Frying Pan-Arkansas diversion include this type of shortage."

I do not know which Western Slope representatives made these

stgtementsL '/hat good are compensating rss.er~oLr.s~if ~~-a-l.G4''

to give u alf of our water in order to get them built?

It ould be just the same if I had $10,0UO.OO and you

decid-ed that you were going to take $5000.UO away from me, and you

made the proposition to me that tor the $5000.UO you stole

from me, you would make me a burglar proot safe to keep the

other $0000.00 in. I don't know where the theory came into

existence that we should surrender water we need in order to get reservoirs built. I am simple-minded enough.to reel that

the Storage Project Act provides tinancing whereby we can build

our own reservoirs and put our own water in them without help

from Eastern Colorado or anybody else.

I think you are on the right track in what you are telling

Gov. Johnson and all the rest of these birds, and I certainly

will continue to back you up.

JBB:sc enc.

Yours very truly,

,j

p(UJ.< ,-,,.,(_

B. Barnard