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Show WATER FOR UTAH Bridge Reservoir, of 236,000 acre- feet capacity on the Sevier River, is the major storage facility and serves largely the Delta region in Millard County. Other principal reservoir - the Piute, the Gunnison, the Otter Creek- are of much smaller capacity. ... Present Irrigation Development... There are 254,000 acres of land now irrigated in this basin. Of this, only 36,000, or 14%, are adequately irrigated. The other 218,000 have only 71.8% of full supply. In all, there is now available 702,000 acre- feet of water. This is estimated to be 228,900 acre- feet, or 25%, short of a full supply. Also, the 702,000 acre- feet now developed are only 16% of the amount necessary to irrigate adequately all the arable land in the area. ( See Table 13.) The requirements for water for municipal and industrial uses are not large. There are no cities of more than about 5,000 population. The total population is probably between 60,000 and 65,- 000. The 254,000 acres of land now irrigated are less than one- fourth of the total area suitable for irrigation agriculture. Of all areas of the state, this drainage basin has the least water in relation to the amount of arable lands. Furthermore, because of low precipitation, only a limited amount of the land not irrigated can be dry farmed. Water is the major need of the area. . . Present Hydroelectric Power Development... Hydroelectric power plants now operating in this drainage area are generally small in installed capacity, with a total of 5955 kilowatts. In 1945, the total generation was 27 million kilowatt- hours. . .. Potential Irrigation Development Proposals have been made as part of the Centra! Utah Project for the ultimate development of 3,900 acre- feet annually of additional water within the drainage basin. This would all be used to augment the limited supply on lands now irrigated. An additional 420,200 acre- feet are proposed to be transferred from the Colorado River area as a part of the Central Utah and Gooseberry projects. Of this, 92,200 would be supplemental water and 328,000 would be applied on 81,300 acres of new lands. After this development, less than one- third of the arable land would be irrigated, and that part that would be irrigated would have only 90% of an adequate supply. There would be 148,900 acres with only a 76.7% supply. The present supply and the proposed developments would amount to only 25.7% of the amount of water that could be used on arable lands if it were available. ( See Table 14.) . Potential Hydroelectric Power Developments .. The proposed plan embodies the construction of major power plants known as Sevier Bridge TABLE 13 PRESENT ANNUAL REQUIREMENTS AND USE OF WATER FOR IRRIGATION IN THE SEVIER RIVER DRAINAGE BASIN, UTAH Present Water Supply Area Requirements for Full Supply Present Supply Present Shortage Present With Full Supply Adequate Inadequate Total irrigated Potential arable 1,000 acres 36.0 218.0 254.0 1,169.3 1,000 A.- Ft. 119.0 811.9 930.9 4,384.9 1,000 A.- R. 119.0 583.0 702.0 702.0 1,000 A.- Ft. 228.9 228.9 3,682.9 Per cent 100.0 7I. 81 75.41 16.0 1Often the effective supply is less than this because the shortage is concentrated in the latter part of the season. [ 117] |