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Show Thursday, June 13, 2013 WATER Continued from Page 1 by watering at night and being selective about what receives water. "Half of what they normally get produces half a crop," said Roland Beck, water master of the Gunnison Irrigation Company. "Most of the farmers I talk to say, 'We'll take our first crop and get whatever we can on the second. We'll save all our water for the corn.' And that's what they'll do. They'll just skip all of the third crop and part of the second crop." It is expected that the water will be all but gone by the end of the summer. "There will always be some water, but not very much," Dyreng said. "I would say that by the middle of August the mountain streams will diminish to very little and the reservoirs will be dry." Centerfield Mayor Tom Sorenson said that the city is trying to educate its townspeople on saving water. Two years ago, it implemented a resolution that limited the residents to watering their lawns during nighttime hours only. Sorenson said that something simi- The Gunnison Valley Gazette lar will be announced again at the next city council meeting, but he warned that people shouldn't panic. "Every time we talk about rationing, everybody overuses," he said. "It's almost like they think 'Well, I better hurry and use the water before its out.' And then they drain the pond. So if we go to rationing and we say everybody on the east side waters on Monday and everybody on the west side waters on Tuesday, the pond will be dry by Tuesday morning and everybody panics. That is the biggest thing. Don't panic." Sorenson said that the best thing for people to do is to use common sense, cut back on water use and utilize it the best you can. "It's going to take a cornmunity effort," he said. "Gunnison residents and Centerfield residents—everybody has got to be in it together." Despite the water shortage, Dyreng is confident that everything will turn out all right. "We'll be just fine," he said. "For city people it will be more of an inconvenience. Farmers will just have to make some decisions on which fields they water and which ones they don't. We'll get through it fine." The Gunnison Valley Gazette can address, stamp, and mail your invitations for the price of a stamp! Call for details -528-5178 Page 5 FLOODS Continued from Page 1 ter was just starting to come over the bank on the river there. We got a bunch of guys up there with sandbags and stopped it." Over the next few days, the flooding worsened, and much more help was needed. "We brought in some old car bodies," Donaldson said. "We brought them in on trucks and would lay them along the river. The firemen were out putting sandbags and big hunks of cement around them. We put firemen out on lifelines and they'd wade out there trying to put sandbags in the right place." JoAnn Anderson's home sits near the spot where the Sanpitch River enters Gunnison. She recalled the water coming up into her fields, washing away a fence, some corrals and a turkey coop before threatening her home. "We had never experienced anything like that before. The river flowed very heavy and it went its own way. It didn't go directly where the canal was going at the time," Anderson said. "We had the National Guard people here helping. The valley was helping sandbag. The National Guard people came out in our fields and made a big embankment so it wouldn't get our house." Main Street's bridge was eventually submerged with water as the river continued to rise. "The bridge was the main problem," Donaldson said. "That was a big worry, Courtesy Photo/Joann Anderson The field in front of LeEarl Nay's house, located south of the River Bridge, submerged in water during the flood of '83. trying to get the water under that bridge. If that bridge would have went, the whole Highway 89 would have been shut down." The water not only threatened homes and businesses, but it caused problems for the farmers in the valley as well. Some fields were left underwater and some were left dry, without a way to get water. "There were many cement ditches that were being poured and used throughout the valley," Caldwell said. "It would fill these cement ditches level with silt. The farmers suffered pretty grievously because they couldn't get the water to the crops. Water was everywhere but where you wanted it." The biggest concern of the runoff soon became the Gunnison Reservoir dam. The water from the reservoir was overflowing and started to come back and erode at the spillway. "The water that was coming out of there was just so tremendous," Donaldson said. "You couldn't believe ourtesy oto oann n erson Jack Buchanan hauling his pigs to dry ground. the water that was coming off of that east spillway." Fears began to arise that the dam would break. "There was so much water it created a whirlpooltype situation that just kept eating back up underneath the spillway," Caldwell said. "It would eat all the dirt away from under the asphalt. That would fall in and the process would start over again — six to eight feet at time. If it got up to where it took out that portion where it went right into the reservoir, then nothing would have stopped it." Workers tried to stop the growing problem by placing 4.1.0 large boulders into the overflowing spillway. Machines were brought in from Richfield and Hales Sand and Gravel in Redmond because there was nothing in the valley large enough to move the boulders. "That's all they had to work with were the boulders," Caldwell said. "There was nothing else that would even touch it. It was an outstanding amount of water. If they didn't keep adding boulders it probably would have went." "It was quite the spring," Donaldson said. 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