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Show Opposition 10 bonneviiie based on misunderstanding, Foundation believej ' ,vullmMt of th I1"""'-,Vl'nit I1"""'-,Vl'nit of th iViitrat I'tnh T fcV the t-Yt-sidfnt. would ,uir drsti0 lu,r,ion i . nJ would be based on f rsUmimK of th- fo- i rt involved, aivordmir to !',jh Foundation, the private, j prof" public service a- K'iu-y. "If the full Itoimevillo Unit is not constructed, there appears ap-pears to be no way for Utah to make optimum use of its leKal entitlement to water from the Colorado River System." the Foundation notes in a research re-search report released this week. Most of the water for the river system falls on the liiK'h mountuin watersheds of Utah and of the other Upper Colorado Basin slates of Colorado, Colo-rado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Wyo-ming. Opposition to the Ilonne-ville Ilonne-ville Unit is largely directed at the reportedly low benefit-cost benefit-cost ratio of the portion of the project that would bring water wat-er from the Uintah Basin into the Itoimevillo Hasin west of the Wasatch Mountain range. Most of this water would initially be turned south into Utah and Juab Counties and into the Sevier Basin for irrigation purposes. "The water to be brought in from the Uintah Basin has a far greater potential value than at first appears, making the low benefit cost ratio which has been assigned to this part of the project deceptive," decep-tive," the Foundation notes. "From the beginning, Central Utah Project planners have emphasized that this water would initially be used for irrigation, hut could later be expected to pass to higher-priority higher-priority (culinary and industrial) indus-trial) uses by simple operation of the laws of economics." Average price for irrigation water in central Utah is $4 to $7 per acre-foot, while water for culinary and industrial uses brings the figure up to $100 per acre foot, a price which would change the benefit-cost ratio of the trans basin diversion unit of the Bonneville Bonne-ville Unit substantially. Utah's long range water plan encompasses much more than the Central Utah Project, Proj-ect, although CUP is the largest single factor in the plan, the Foundation report notes. Such things as increased increas-ed use of underground water, reduction in evaporation losses, los-ses, generally increased efficiency effi-ciency in water use, and cloud seeding where feasible are all taken into account. The State Water Plan was launched as a result of the drought threat of 11MI1 and has been developed and kept current by the Uluh Division of Water Resources. "The critical drought faced by Utah and much of the area west of the Continental Divide Di-vide in the summer of 1977 is the immediate and obvious outcome of the unusually dry winter of 197(5-77," the Foundation Foun-dation report notes. "In a broader sense, however, the current situalion is only an intensified manifestation of the never-ending problem of water scarcity faced by this semi-arid region." The 1977 drought has illustrated illus-trated not only the value of water itself, but the importance impor-tance of waler storage and facilities to transport it to the point of consumption at the right time, the Foundation points out. Areas without storage have suffered severely severe-ly in the 1977 drought, and in some places the emergency was compounded by lack of means of transporting available avail-able water to areas where it was critically needed. While all of Utah falls into a generally dry climatic classification, classifi-cation, there is considerable variation from season to season, sea-son, from year to year, and from one geographical area to another. Average precipitation precipita-tion at the north end of Utah Lake, for example, is less than one fourth that recorded at Brighton, some 20 miles away by airline. Precipitation at the Salt Lake Airport averages 15.5 inches a year, but fell to less than nine inches in 1966, then rose to more than 21 inches just two years later, in 1968. In the dry summer of 1977, conditions varied a-round a-round the state, precipitation averaging 59 of normal for the state as a whole, but ranging from 41 of normal in southeastern Utah to 83 of normal for the western climatolojfical region. Fiffures are for the water year beginning begin-ning October 1, 1976 through June 30, 1977. "If, as is fervently hoped, the coming winter provides normal or above normal precipitation, pre-cipitation, the 1977 experi ence will still stand as a valuable lesson for state planners," plan-ners," the Foundation reports. re-ports. "If, however, 1977 is the beginning of a prolonged dry cycle a distinct possibility possibil-ity on the basis of past records this year's problem could become critical or even disastrous." |