The Eighth Annual report of the Upper Colorado River Comission to the Presidentof the United States and the Governors of the Upper Colorado River Basin States

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F. Projects Having Priority for Investigations Under Public Law 485,84th Congress, 2d Session, Following Completion of Definite Plan Investigations on Authorized Projects The following project descriptions are based on reconnaissance surveys and analyses made by the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation. Modifications in many of the project plans may result from more detailed investigations. 1. Juniper Project Tn Section 2 of Public Law 485, priority is also given to the completion of a planning report on the Juniper Project. It is not specified in the Act whether it is to be a Storage Unit or a participating project. Its classification will be determined by the type of project planned and the course of future events. A dam at the Juniper site would be located on the Yampa River in northwestern Colorado about ten miles upstream from the village of Maybell. With reference to reservoir sites, there is competition between the site for the Cross Mountain Reservoir as originally planned as one of the Storage Units and the site for the proposed Juniper Reservoir. At the Cross Mountain site, any dam more than 145 feet high would inundate the Juniper site. On Deadmans Bench in Colorado and Utah are about 90,000 acres of new land which could be served by a canal diverting from the Yampa River. Preliminary studies indicate that a feasible plan would involve storage at either the Juniper or Cross Mountain Reservoir sites on the Yampa River. Power generation at either or both and at the downstream Lily Park site below the junction of the Yampa and Little Snake Rivers would probably be valuable increments to the irrigation plan. A dam 215 feet high at Lily Park would back water to the Cross Mountain site. It is reported that in terms of cost per acre-foot of storage, the Cross Mountain site is the most easily justified economically in the Upper Colorado River Basin. By providing approximately 3,000,000 acre-feet of storage, a gravity diversion could be made to the Deadmans Bench lands. The total amount of storage would be dependent upon the amount of electrical energy to be developed. -48-