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Show San Juan-Grand Water Studies Show High Costs in Develoninq Resources By C. Sharp Proposed reclamation projects in San Juan and Grand counties now bein studied by the V. S. Bur-cvj Bur-cvj of Reclamation would be relatively expensive. This was disclosed in a process report made last .v-k in Mor.tlcel'.o bv Paul W'illmore, regional project d-wol.oment engineer. Mr. Wl'.'.moro rejwrted at a meeting of the State Water Wa-ter Resources Board and others. The three-year San Juan investigations will cost $132,000. The state is providing pro-viding S10.000. The San Juan Oir.ty Water Conservancy Conser-vancy District is paying s;iOfW -ind t'-ie remainin" S112.fX0 is federal money. This study includes all of S?n Juan county. Grand cour.ty south of the Colorado Colo-rado river and west of the Dolores river. That part ur.der the Dolores river i.-, being considered for authorization auth-orization in drafts of legislation legis-lation related to the Central Cen-tral Arizona Project. The study area covers S.960 square miles, only eight per cent of which is privately owned lands. Some 30. 000 acres of this were found suitable for irrigation if water was available at a reasonable cost. "Because of the scarcity of water at higher elevations eleva-tions and the high cost of diverting Colorado, San Juan and Dolores river waters wa-ters from the deeply entrenched en-trenched channels surrounding surroun-ding the area, it is obviuos that only a small portion of the arable area can be economically irrigated," Mr. Will more said. Within the study area, tributaries head from the La Sal, Abaio and Clay mountains, and the Dolores Rim and from the Navajo Reservation. Protects under study are: Bluff Would use waters wa-ters of the San Juan river for irrigating 442 acres of land. About 90 acres now are irrigated. Water would be channeled by gravity into a settling basin from where it would be pumped pump-ed through strvl pipe to the lands. Cost about S223.000. West Bluff Would pump river water t0 lower low-er bench lands west of Bluff. Cost not yet available. avail-able. Bluff Bench Would pump river water to higher bench land on the mesas north of Bluff. Cost net yet available. Cottonwood Would provide a 9.500 acre foot reservoir on Cottonwood Creek just downstream from U-95 to irrigate 1.200 acres of new lands on lower low-er White Mesa south of Blanding. Cost about S9G5,-000. S9G5,-000. Mexican Hat Project and alternates Would develop devel-op water for a coal-fired thermal electric power plant to burn coal from Arizona's Black Mesa open pit conl field on the Navajo Reservation. Among problems prob-lems to be overcome would be to eliminate sediment from river water and to cope with high evaporation. Cost would be about $11 million including a dam, reservoir, re-servoir, pumping plant, do-silting do-silting works and pipe line to reservoir. Blanding Only about 50 per cent of available runoff can be used during the ideal irrigation season because of early runoff. Four alternative reservoir reser-voir sites have been studied1 stud-ied1 as possibilities for Increasing In-creasing the usable water for Irrigation in the Blanding Bland-ing area. One of these, at Upper Recapture Creek would cost about $2.5 million. mil-lion. Montezuma Creek A resewoir site ls three miles upstream from the confluence conflu-ence with Cross Canyon A large sediment inflow and high flood peak are obstacles. |