10. River discharge and ground-water data.-Additional investigations should be undertaken in the Platte River Valley of stream flow and ground water in order to supplement data now available. The cost is estimated at $120,000. 11. The project. The project proposed for the Platte Valley includes: (a) Completion or construction of the following irrigation works: Casper-Alcova project (completion). Extension of Michigan, Colorado-La Poudre, and Hoosier Pass ditches.. Jones Pass diversion.. Grand Lake-Big Thompson diversion___ Sutherland Reservoir, feed canal and power plant.. Total.... $10, 700, 000 600, 000 300, 000 (b) The continued study of stream flow and ground-water conditions at an estimated cost of $120,000. (c) The provision of technical assistance and leadership in the solution of local problems of erosion control and land use. ARKANSAS RIVER 1. Description.-The Arkansas River rises in the Rocky Mountain region in Colorado, flows in a general easterly direction and empties into the Mississippi River near Arkansas City, Ark. Its length is 1,450 miles. Its drainage area is about 160,500 square miles and includes parts of the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas. The fall varies from 0.6 feet per mile near the mouth to 40 feet per mile near the source. The maximum discharge at Arkansas City is about 830,000 cubic feet per second. The Arkansas, together with the White River, furnishes the increments which usually produce the maximum floods on the Mississippi River. The principal tributaries are the Fourche La Fave, Petit Jean, Poteau, Grand (Neosho), Verdigris, Cimarron, and Salt Fork Rivers. (See accompanying map.) Agriculture is the principal industry throughout the watershed. Industrial development is connected with the natural resources of the basin including coal and metal mining, oil and gas production, salt, gypsum, bauxite, and lumber. The total population of the watershed is 3,694,000. The largest cities are Oklahoma City (185,000), Tulsa (144,000), Wichita (111,000), Little Rock (82,000), and Pueblo (50,000) 2. Irrigation. The problems of this basin are regional. At its headwaters they are connected with irrigation because of inadequate stream flow, lower down they are connected with excessive flow, floods, and pollution. For convenience, the basin can best be considered by States. Colorado: The irrigated area of 753,000 acres on the Arkansas River and its tributaries has been privately developed in the past 70 years. Storage reservoirs, almost entirely of the inland type and largely on the plains north of Rocky Ford and La Junta, total 922,600 acre-feet in capacity. Irrigation works cover far more area than can normally be supplied, with a chronic and at times distressing water shortage. A transmountain tunnel to cost $1,100,000 is being constructed to import 30,000 acre-feet of Colorado River Basin waters, but will provide only a small fraction of the waters most urgently needed. There is urgent need of much more water. The most attractive plan proposed is a tunnel 16 miles long through the Rocky Mountains west of Salida, together with 80 miles of collecting canals to secure a large portion of the unused waters of the Gunnison River and its tributaries. For best results, storage should be provided on the western slope above the canal to enable catchment of flood flows beyond canal capacity, and below the canals to enable western-slope irrigation to be adequately supplied from other waters. Such a plan would yield an annual average of 350,000 acre-feet of water and cost about $20,000,000. That amount of water would fully meet the needs of lands already provided with canals and enable a moderate expansion. Further diversions are contemplated by extending the gathering system of the Twin Lakes tunnel (now under construction) at a cost of $1,200,000 to secure 30,000 acre-feet more of water from the Roaring Fork River, and the Tennessee Pass tunnel project with 2.4 miles of tunnel and a considerable length of canals to capture 20,000 acre-feet of Eagle River waters at a cost of $1,000,000. Applied on new lands and reused, these works would fully irrigate 200,000 acres, but being in part to be used as supplemental water, it will benefit an area of fully 300,000 acres. Available lands far exceed the water supply that can be secured. Colorado-Kansas: Progressive irrigation in Colorado has made irrigation in western Kansas correspondingly less practicable. In the past 30 years there has of necessity been abandonment instead of growth, although with its large reserves of adjacent grazing and dry farmlands, irrigation production is especially desirable. It has been proposed to correct this situation by the construction of the Caddoa Reservoir in Colorado, about 50 miles above the State line, which could be built with a capacity of 1,250,000 acre-feet without serious encroachment on the town of Las Animas. This reservoir would conserve the erratic floods originating in the foothill region of Colorado and enable western Kansas irrigation to be fully restored. To end the interstate litigation which has been in progress for fully 30 years on account of injury to Kansas irrigation, the construction of Caddoa Dam should be coupled with a compact that will provide a final settlement of the interstate question. In the absence thereof, the conflict would likely be renewed by lands further east, which would attempt development with the improved, but still inadequate, stream flow. New Mexico: The Canadian River, a tributary of the Arkansas, extends into the northeastern part of the State, its watershed embracing an area of about 15.000 square miles in the State, with a population of 75,000. In 1927 there were irrigated from the Canadian and its tributaries in New Mexico, 68,665 acres, involving an investment of $1,886,565. A tabulation of the lakes and reservoirs in the Canadian River Basin in New Mexico, gives an irrigation storage capacity of about 140,000 acre-feet. Investigations so far made indicate that the cost of additional reservoirs for irrigation and flood control would be too great for the benefits that would result. 3. Navigation. The existing project provides only for snagging on the lower reaches. Some contraction works were constructed years ago with little permanent beneficial result. There is an insistent local demand for improvement of the river for navigation to the vicinity of Tulsa. It has been found, however, that the most feasible plan is for canalization over the Arkansas and Verdigris Rivers to Catoosa, about 15 miles from Tulsa. The cost of a 9-foot navigation project is estimated at $203,400,000 for construction and $200,000 for land and damages, a total of $203,600,000. The estimated annual cost of operation and maintenance is $8,500,000. It is estimated that the annual benefits of such a project would be about $8,610,000. It should be noted, however, that local interests claim this latter estimate is too low because of the exclusion of alleged potential traffic now transported by pipeline. The matter is being further investigated. 4. Flood control. The flood-control problem in the Arkansas Basin is of importance because of the effect of Arkansas River discharges on Mississippi River floods and because of the effects of local floods which inflict damages estimated to average $4,580,000 annually, exclusive of damages to urban areas. The following system of reservoirs appears to be the best to give appreciable effect on the Mississippi River and at the same time to give a measure of local protection. Such a system would prevent local damages valued at $789,000 annually and would decrease maximum Mississippi River discharges by 225,000 cubic feet per second. 1Cost given here is flood-control portion of reservoir cost, which is prorated on the basis of capacity reserved for that purpose. Capital cost at 4 percent annually plus operation and maintenance. In the following table there are shown in order of merit projects designed for prevention of local flood losses which appear to be feasible at this time or may become so in the near future. Reservoirs in this list which do not appear in the preceding table could have very little effect on Mississippi River floods. Do. Salt Fork. Do.. Do.. Verdigris.. Winfield, Kans., levee Augusta, Kans., levee. Kaw, Okla., levee.. Tulsa, Okla., levee. Oklahoma Unit No. 7, levee. Oklahoma Unit No. 5, levee. Fort Supply Reservoir. 9,000 1, 530,000 1, 450 14,000 Caddoa Reservoir (reservoir for dual $1,933,000 $340, 240 $473,000 to Arkansas City, Kans., levee.. 94,000 (1) (1) 108, 630 (1) (1) 77,800 (1) (1) 32, 500 2,780 308, 000 18,750 9,400 52, 320 9,774 14,400 Fort Reno Reservoir. Levee No. 4, Kay County, Okla. Cottonwood Falls, Kans., levee. Neosho Rapids, Kans., levee. Hartford, Kans., levee Burlington, Kans., levee.. Leroy, Kans., levee... Neosho Falls, Kans., levee.. Iola, Kans., levee.. Humboldt, Kans., levee.. 1,370 1,420 Do. Do. Do Do. Grand. Do. Do. Do.. 1,900 Do 2, 110 Do. 27,000 Do 9, 630 535 Do.. Chetopa, Kans., Levee. Levee No. 4, Cherokee County, Kans_ Levee No. 39, Lyons County, Kans. Cow Creek diversion levees. 1 Data not available. Apparently justified because of existing concentrated values. ? Additional cost of $1,000,000 to provide water supply for Oklahoma City. Other similar projects costing about $30,000,000 may become feasible during the progress of a long-range program. 5. Water supply. The following municipal water-supply projects, in addition to Fort Reno Reservoir, appear to be feasible; Council Grove: cost, $1,330,000; Fall River: cost, $1,275,000; Peru: cost, $716,000; and Braman: cost, $348,000. 6. Water power. The most feasible water-power sites in the Arkansas Basin are located on the Grand (Neosho) River. Data on these projects are given in the following table: |