OREGON TRAIL DIVISION - Glendo Unit Glendo Unit will consist of a dam and powerplant on the North Platte River, 4.5 miles southeast of the town of Glendo, Wyoming, and the Fremont Canyon Powerplant at the backwater of Alcova Reservoir. The main functions of the 800,000-acre-feet capacity reservoir will be irrigation storage, flood control, and reregulation of releases from upstream powerplants. Other functions include pollution abatement, siltation, and improvement of quality of water. The installed power capacity of Glendo and Fremont Canyon units will total 72, 000 kilowatts--24, 000 at Glendo and 48,000 at Fremont Canyon. According to plan, the Glendo plant will operate mainly during the irrigation season, although it will provide some valuable winter peaking. The Fremont Canyon plant will operate the year-round. Program FY1955 Funds available - $1,804, 175 Accomplishments FY1955 Expenditures to June 30 - $1,635,942 Dam and powerplant now about 25% completed. Diversion tunnel holed through and foundation excavation under way. Design and specifications completed for railroad relocation. Construction of Government com munity facilities advertised, bids received. Award pending. HEART DIVISION - Heart Butte Unit Heart Butte Dam, a major feature of the Heart Butte unit, was completed on the Heart River about 15 miles south of Glen Ullin, North Dakota, late in 1949. It is a rolled earthfill structure with a structural height of 142 feet and a crest length of 1, 850 feet. A 2, 800-foot dike was constructed across a low pass south of the dam. The irrigable lands under the unit originally included 13, 100 acres in small pumping projects scattered along the river's course between the dam and the mouth of the river at Mandan. An irrigation district was organized in 1946, but a repayment contract was not completed with the water users. After the dam's completion in 1949, negotiations for a repayment contract were begun and objections to the inclusion of certain tracts began to appear, mostly from landowners situated in the eastern two-thirds of the area. Continued negotiations through the intervening years and considerable litigation led to the dissolution of the old irrigation district and the formation of a new one, which includes roughly the western third of the original lands, those lying closest to Heart Butte Dam. The irrigation works now being brought under construction include 24 portable pumping units, 16 miles of laterals and drains, together with 24 substations to provide electrical energy for pumping. These works will provide irrigation water for 2,463 acres and additional acreages can be brought under irrigation at the discretion of the landowners. Blocks of land served by the individual pumps vary from 25 to 358 acres. UPPER REPUBLICAN DIVISION St. Francis Unit The St. Francis Unit is composed of Bonny Dam on the South Fork of the Republican River about 27 miles west of St. Francis, Kansas, and a canal system to irrigate about 6,000 acres of new land and supplemental irrigation to 750 acres in Colorado. The main function of the unit is to regulate the flows of the Republican River and reduce flood peaks. Bonny Dam, completed in April 1951, is a rolled earthfill structure 128 feet above the streambed and 9,300 feet long. It provides 170,000 acre-feet of control storage for flood and silt control, irrigation storage, recreation, and other benefits. Cedar Bluff Unit consists of Cedar Bluff Dam on Smoky Hill River about 18 miles southwest of Ellis, Kansas, and a canal system to furnish irrigation water for 11,500 acres on the upland terraces north of the Smoky Hill River. The main function of the unit is to provide irrigation and flood control storage. The reservoir, formed by the 12,560-foot-long, 134-foot-high rolled earthfill Cedar Bluff Dam, impounds 379,000 acre-feet of water. The flood control storage provided in Cedar Bluff Reservoir will allow some of the existing flood control storage in Kanopolis Reservoir to be used for irrigation storage, thus permitting 41,000 acres of land to be irrigated below Kanopolis Reservoir. BUFFALO RAPIDS PROJECT - First Division The First Division of the Buffalo Rapids Project is in Dawson and Prairie Counties, Montana. It extends along the south bank of the Yellowstone River from Glendive to a point about 28 miles upstream. Water for the 13, 903 irrigable acres of the project is pumped from the Yellowstone River. Construction of the project was authorized in the Emergency Relief Act of 1937, and water was first made available for irrigation in 1940. Program FY1955 Funds available - $151, 347 Accomplishments FY1955 Expenditures to June 30 - $99, 253 Construction of drains continued throughout the year. BUFFALO RAPIDS PROJECT - Second Division The Shirley, Terry, and Fallon Units, which comprise the Second Division of the Buffalo Rapids Project, are separate areas along the east bank of the Yellowstone River near Terry, Montana, The division has an irrigable area of 8,792 acres. The division was authorized in 1939 as a part of the water conservation program approved in the Interior Department appropriation act of 1940. Water was first available to the Shirley Unit in 1944, the Terry Unit in 1945, and the Fallon Unit in 1950. |