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Florida Project
State: Colorado
Region: Upper Colorado Basin Region
Related Documents
Florida Project History (46 KB)
Related Facilities
Related Links
Mountain Snowpack Maps for Colorado, Rio Grande, and Arkansas Rivers
Lemon Dam
Palmer Drought Index Map
Explanation of the Palmer Drought Index
Reclamation's Upper Colorado Region Water Operations
Reclamation Water Information System
General
Lemon Dam is the principal feature of the Florida Project, which is a participating project of the Colorado River Storage Project. The dam is located in southwestern Colorado on the Florida River, approximately 14 miles northeast of the city of Durango in La Plata County. Floodwaters of the Florida River are stored in the reservoir formed by the dam, and regulated releases can provide supplemental irrigation water for 19,450 acres.
History
After the territory was acquired by the United States from Mexico, a large area which includes the Florida Project was set aside as a reservation for the Southern Ute Nation. The discovery of gold and other minerals in the northern mountainous part of the reservation led to encroachment by miners and prospectors on reservation lands. The resulting conflict was settled in 1874 when the United States purchased that part of the reservation containing the mineral lands. Following the 1874 purchase, the better agricultural lands thus removed from the reservation were developed and settled. In 1899, reservation lands which had not been allocated to individual Ute members were opened to homesteaders, with resulting settlement and irrigation development.
Construction
The contract for construction of Lemon Dam was awarded June 30, 1961, and all contract work was completed in December 1963. Rehabilitation of Florida Farmers Diversion Dam and enlargement and relocation of Florida Farmers Ditch and Florida Canal were conducted in 1962-63. Construction of the lateral system, with a total length of 14.1 miles and ranging in capacity from 2 to 50 cubic feet per second, was initiated in June 1963 and essentially completed in November 1964. The Florida Water Conservancy District began rehabilitation of the existing lateral system in March 1963 and completed the work in 1965. Irrigated lands are used largely for the support of livestock enterprises. Climatically adaptable crops such as small grains, alfalfa, pasture, and corn are the principal products. Recreation facilities at Lemon Reservoir were constructed by the National Park Service and are operated by the Forest Service. For specific information on recreational opportunities at Lemon Reservoir click on the name below. http://www.recreation.gov/detail.cfm?ID=55 Flood control benefits result from reduced snowmelt flooding due to the operation of Lemon Reservoir. Lemon Reservoir has 39,030 acre-feet specific reservoir capacity assigned for flood control. The Florida Project has provided an accumulated $136,000 in flood control benefits from 1950 to 1999. The Florida Project The Florida Project is a land of medians. In this small triangle-shaped plot of southwestern Colorado, nature, the past, and present meet and exert influence on the future. Historically, it is where the Ute Indians, Spanish, and Americans converged and claimed the area as their own. Climatically, it is a place where the warm, arid wind of the southwest desert plateau meets the gusts of the San Juan mountains to the north. Reclamation stepped into the middle of this middle ground at the height of the anything is possible, go-go 1960s. As an initial component of the Colorado River Storage Project, the Florida Project was a piece on the assembly line of construction. From foundation excavation to first deliveries of water, Florida`s Lemon Dam and Reservoir were brought into this world with an air of business as usual nonchalance. Recently, a new turning point appeared, as cattle raising and agriculture have felt the intrusion of paved streets, sewage systems and tract homes. Since the early 1990s, the city of Durango, the largest community nearest the project has grown without limits. Dealing with the creeping menace of suburban subdivisions constrains the people and the mission of the Florida Project to travel an increasingly narrow road. In La Plata County Colorado, `Florida` is pronounced in the same manner the Spanish explorers first called the river 200 years ago, with the emphasis on the last syllable. Instead of tropical breezes and endless sunshine, this Florida gets a taste of both the desert climate of the Colorado Plateau and the coolness of the 14,000 foot high San Juan mountains nearby. Toward the east and southeast of project lands, the San Juan mountains extend to the San Luis Valley with an outlier running south into New Mexico at a rapidly decreasing elevation. Northeast and north of the project, the San Juan`s are more or less directly joined to the rest of the Rocky Mountains. Project lands are almost entirely on the Florida Mesa, one of the largest and most compact bodies of land in the Florida River basin. This diamond-shaped plot is 15 miles long, six miles wide with its northern apex five miles due east of the city of Durango. The project`s southern extremity is near the junction of the Florida and Animas Rivers, about 15 miles south of Durango. The dam and reservoir are about 14 miles northeast of town. One of the few chroniclers of La Plata County`s past believed that to call the Florida a river was `rather an undeserved dignity.` The Florida River heads on the south slopes of the Needle Mountains, about 10 miles southwest of the Continental Divide. The 68-mile drainage area above Lemon Dam varies in elevation from 7,950 feet at the damsite to more than 13,000 feet at the headwaters. The frost free season comes and goes quickly between the warmth of early June and the cool of late September, approximately 112 to 130 days. Temperatures in Durango vary from 99 to -27 below, and town averages 19.16 inches of precipitation. The growing months between June and September, however are usually dry, as the region collects less than eight inches of rainfall. The Florida Mesa can boast of `more uniform and better soil than usual for areas of similar size in Western Colorado,` with red sandy to red clay loam of good quality and great depth.(1) Project History The first known inhabitants of Southwestern Colorado date back more than 10,000 years. The most intriguing of these early cultures was the Anasazi, a Navajo word meaning `the old people.` Their attempts at farming produced only a single variety of corn and squash, but they sustained themselves by hunting and gathering wild seeds, fruits and plants. The Anasazi disappeared from the region around 1300 A.D. for reasons anthropologists still only guess at.(2) The next group to live off this land were the Ute Indians. The exact date of the first contact between the nomadic Utes and Spanish explorers remains in doubt, but the Utes possessed their first horses as early as 1640 as the result of encounters with Spanish expeditions in New Mexico. Between 1761 and 1765, the first Spaniards venturing through what would become La Plata County were led by Juan Maria de Rivera. Rivera`s journal of his trek is lost to history, but it is commonly believed he named most of the streams and mountains in La Plata County. One of those streams was described as Florida, or `blooming` in English. A little more than a decade later, in 1776, Padres Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Francisco V. Dominguez joined by eight companions, followed Rivera`s route permanently establishing the names given to the landmarks by the earlier party.(3) Despite Spanish exploration, Southwestern Colorado remained a part of the enormous Ute hunting and tribal land. After the United States claimed this area from their victory in the Mexican War, treaties in 1863 and 1868 between the United States government and the Utes established the first boundaries on the tribe. The treaties were designed to protect and limit the increasing numbers of whites trespassing onto Ute land. Regardless of the agreement, gold miners and their lust for ore turned friction between whites and the Utes into open warfare. In 1873, U.S. Army Captain John Moss attempted to negotiate a private treaty between both sides in La Plata County. His efforts were stymied by combat between both sides, but a temporary truce was called the following year. According to the terms of the arrangement, the Federal government purchased three million acres from the Utes, including most of the mountains and all of the prospective mineral land. An 1875 dispatch to a Denver newspaper depicted the Florida Valley as empty with a few unoccupied cabins along the river and patches of grass unable to sustain a herd of cattle. By the beginning of the 1880s, other bands of Utes were moved into the Utah Territory. Only the Southern Utes were allowed to stay in Colorado on a 15-mile wide, 100 mile-long strip of reservation land.(4) The settlement of the San Juan Basin was incidental to the discovery of gold and the rapid expansion of mining in the nearby mountains. Attracting people to raise crops instead of prospecting for gold was a more daunting proposition. There was little desirable land outside of the reservation, and it was not until the reservation was opened to outside settlement on May 4, 1899, that another land grab began. In another deal with the government, the Southern Utes accepted 374 allotments of land totaling 60,000 acres for their own use. The remaining 636,000 acres purchased by the Federal Government were soon sifted through by whites and the better lands settled. Typical of other newly inhabited parts of the west, irrigators unfamiliar with their surroundings unsuccessfully experimented. The overproduction of crops not suited to the area and the inaccessibility of certain markets were the two primary drawbacks to farming the Florida Mesa. Successful farmers quickly learned any agricultural production in the area served as an adjunct to the livestock business. Local winter rangelands were not sufficient to support the Hereford cattle and sheep coming down from the mountain pastures at the end of summer. In order to support the hungry herds and flocks, and keep themselves in business, farmers grew alfalfa hay, grains, and grass hay. At the turn of the century, 23 ditches watered an average of a hundred acres each directly from the Florida River. Two of these, the eastern mesa`s Florida Farmers Ditch System, and the Florida Canal system supporting the western mesa, continue to serve practically all local irrigators. The town of Durango built a log crib dam and a 200 acre-foot capacity reservoir near the head of the Florida River in an area known as Upper Park. It was eventually abandoned due to its inaccessibility and poor condition of the dam and outlet works. In the dry year of 1902, it was apparent that a water storage facility was needed, and there was talk among Durango residents and mesa farmers about building a dam. Heavy rainfall in following years washed from local memory the fact that storage would be needed when the next dry cycle arrived.(5) Seasons of excess moisture were dim recollections by the late 1920s. The first federal investigation of the Florida River was packaged with other western Colorado damsite surveys as part of a Public Works Project. An allotment of $150,000 from an appropriation made available under the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 16, 1933 launched the initial investigation of the Florida River. In September 1938, the work conducted under the 1933 appropriation was transferred to the Colorado River Basin Investigations and continued under provisions of Section 15 of the Boulder Canyon Act. These studies were held in the midst of the century`s worst dry spell; twelve years of drought commencing in the late 1920s before annual precipitation returned to normal at the dawn of the 1940s. At summer`s close in each of those dry years, the small amount of water left in the ditches could only nurture the hay and grain flush against the canals. Lack of water for the second cutting of hay resulted in an inadequate feed supply for cattle during the winter. Farmed acreage on in Florida dropped from 18,351 acres in 1929 to 13,794 in 1938 -- a 25 per cent reduction in irrigated lands. Hard times in the fields snowballed into increased farm indebtedness, loss of farms, consolidation of holdings under one management, and an increase in tenancy. A 1939 Bureau examination of the Florida Mesa perceived local farmers as "naturally alert, progressive and receptive to new ideas," but after more than a decade of unforgiving weather, "they have become skeptical of new proposals and become resigned to their present condition."(6) The Bureau`s 1939 study thoroughly covered the logistics of bringing a water project to the Florida Mesa. The sandstone for the dam would be quarried near the site, the sand and gravel for the concrete would come from washing and crushing the stones of the riverbed, and cement and equipment would be hauled from Durango. Reclamation noted the main drawbacks to both crews and design would be the project`s elevation of 8,000 feet and a short construction season of six months.(7) Isolation and the war delayed construction from 1939 to 1945, and a series of post-war studies would delay construction. In an effort to get the government to notice them, the Florida Water Conservancy District (FWCD) was born on July 20, 1948, in the La Plata County Courthouse in Durango. The FWCD would be the agent in all actions with the Federal Government when the decision would be made to build a facility across the Florida River. From the birth of the FWCD in 1948 to the late 1950s, reports in favor of developing Florida were commissioned. In each passing report, it became more likely the federal government would construct Florida as part of the Colorado River Storage Project. The proposed dam would be named after the site`s landowner, Charles H. Lemon. The coincidence of a Lemon and Florida at the base of the San Juan Mountains was not amusing to a certain group of New Mexican politicians. A brief game of political hardball, played in congressional appropriations committee rooms, awaited the Florida Project before it could have its own day in the sun. Construction of the project as a participating element of the Colorado River Storage project was authorized by Act of April 11, 1956 (70 Stat. 105) P.L. 485. Actual construction was authorized by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton on April 4, 1960. However, a month of acrimony between the states of Colorado and New Mexico almost killed the Florida Project. New Mexico`s Governor John Burroughs, and its delegation to the Senate, felt Florida and other Federal water projects in Colorado`s San Juan Basin would deprive citizens near Farmington, New Mexico their dry year water rights. Florida was held hostage by New Mexican politicians demanding the House Appropriations Committee withhold funds until the two states reconciled their differences. La Plata County was downcast, and three weeks after Seaton`s authorization, the Durango Herald-News headlined the project as a `Dead Duck.` It would take the weighty influence of House Interior Committee Chairman Wayne Aspinall (D-Colo.) to smooth the ruffled feathers of both sides and put the Florida Project back on track. Six months later with the dispute between the two states forgotten, Seaton certified project lands good for irrigation. In November 1960, FWCD members voted to enter into a repayment contract with the United States by a 315-to-1 margin. The repayment contract ordered FWCD to pay the project`s reimbursable construction costs totaling $1,775,000. The reimbursable costs included delivery from project works to the FWCD, water for irrigation of irrigable land within the FWCD, and for the operation and maintenance of project works. The FWCD would pay 50 successive installments with the first annual payment of $35,500 due December 31, 1971. A $125,000 construction cost premium assigned to 785 acres of irrigable lands held by the Utes was deferred under provisions of the Act of July 1, 1932 (47 Stat. 564) until the tribal title was extinguished. After the legalities were settled, Reclamation assigned William F. Cr The Florida Construction Division office on Main Avenue in downtown Durango was the scene of the bid opening on June 1, 1961. Construction Engineer Miller`s announcement of the bid raised gasps in the audience of contractors and representatives. J.F. White Engineering Corporation of Englewood, Colorado held the apparent low bid. White offered a proposal $700,000 less than the engineer`s estimate of $5.5 million. Miller admitted that afternoon to the Durango News-Herald that he was `not overjoyed` by White`s offer. Miller`s misgivings were born from his belief that `most of our problems come from contractors who bid too low and then they can`t make any money on the job. But I`m not worried about it. Maybe he has some ideas the others didn`t think of.` On the final day of June, Reclamation`s Comptroller General found enough errors in White`s bid to cancel their offer. The next lowest bid of $5.8 million was tendered through a joint venture of Colorado Constructors, Inc. (CCI) and A.S. Horner Construction, Co., Inc., both of Denver.(9) Colorado Constructors and Horner`s moved equipment on July 6 to begin preparatory work on separate offices and maintenance yards. While their bid was presented jointly, the two contractors operated independently. Horner would build all concrete structures, excavating and placing the lining in the outlet works tunnel, adit, and shift. They would also install the high pressure gates and miscellaneous metal work, and make all electrical and mechanical installations. Colorado Constructors would move all the earthwork to the damsite. A subcontractor cleared the dam and reservoir sites, a right of way for a county road and a Rural Electrification Administration (REA) powerline. Horner and CCI would also spilt the work on the Florida Farmers Ditch Diversion Dam.(10) Looking like a shopping center parking lot on Christmas Day, only a few trucks and other pieces of equipment scurried along the foundation`s surface in preparation for laying the dam`s material. Encompassed by sturdy evergreens and spindly aspens, the dam site soon was a hive of activity. A battery of machines, including a 50-ton pneumatic-tired roller, a rock-saw wheeled trencher, and a 8,100-lb. Essick vibrating compactor, gouged and formed the site according to Reclamation`s design. Horner installed a portable batching plant in their maintenance compound 600 yards south of the dam on the river`s west bank, delivering concrete to the site by 6.5-yard transit mixers. Placement was made with a mobile crane.(11) Highly porous glacial gravel over the river channel and badly weathered rock on the abutments required digging a positive cutoff. The deeper the crew dug, the more seepage flowed out of the foundation. Continuous pumping was the method used to control the elevation of the water. Design specifications dictated pressure grouting of many areas. These included the rock foundation of the embankment and spillway crest structure, the heel of the left spillway footing, and the rock surrounding the outlet works tunnel, gate chamber, adit, and shaft. A grout cap trench, 3 feet wide and 3 to 5 feet deep was cut into the rock foundation and sealed off by a fan-shaped grout curtain. A key element to the success of the project, drilling and grouting operations across the dam site went ahead with only minor difficulties.(12) On August 18, 1961, excavation of the intake channel`s outlet works began, continuing until September 11 when crews cut into the toe of an old land slide on the right side of the channel. Removing a support at the toe triggered a new slide and digging immediately ended. Several hundred thousand yards of loose dirt needed to be removed to save the intake. After four days of consultations, Reclamation engineers decided to move the intake approximately 300 feet upstream to an area better suited to excavation. Digging the repositioned intake channel at the new site lasted from mid-September to November 1. The same day the intake was moved, September 15, employees of Colorado Constructors called a general strike against the firm. There was no specific reason why the stoppage was called, but only two shifts were lost when the men went back to work a day later. The only other misfortunes to strike the project happened within the space of five days in July 1963. On July 5, a dump truck driven by a CCI employee collided with a DW-20 tractor-scraper off the haul road to the dam, killing the dump truck driver. A flash flood washed out backfill along the spillway`s right side on July 10, temporarily delaying operations.(13) Comprising four zones, the impervious core of Lemon Dam is layered with selected clay, silt, sand, and gravel. The stones and sand of Zones 1, 2, and 4 were gathered at borrow pits upstream from the dam. Because of the soil`s high moisture content and a large percentage of rocks, workers practiced selective excavation to obtain the right kind of clay, silt and gravel for zone 1. Zone 2 is sand, gravel and 12-inch cobbles, zone 3 tops zone 2 with clay, silt, sand, 12-inch cobbles and 18-inch rock fragments, and materials for zone 3 were leftover from the dam and spillway`s foundation excavation. The dam`s downstream face, or zone 4, consists of cobbles, boulders, and rock fragments up to a cubic yard in size. This material came from separation of the oversized rock from zones 1, 2, and 3. Additional oversized rocks were sorted in the borrow area and hauled to the zone 4 embankment. The 3-foot thick layer of riprap that topped off the dam`s upstream embankment was quarried 5.5 miles upstream from the damsite. Being choosy nature to find the right material paid off, as an examination conducted by Reclamation concluded "the quality of material being used is clearly superior to that tested in the laboratory when designs were prepared."(14) The completed dam stands 284 feet high with a crest length of 1,360 feet. Containing 3,042,000 cubic yards of rock and earth, the dam embankment`s maximum base width is 1,170 feet, with a crest thickness of 30 feet. The spillway is on the right abutment of the dam and consists of an approach channel, a concrete inlet and ogee crest section, open concrete chute, concrete stilling basin, and outlet channel discharging into the Florida River. The design capacity of the spillway is 9,600 cubic feet per second (cfs). The outlet works is also found in the dam`s right abutment and includes an approach channel, a concrete intake structure, and a concrete-lined tunnel with upstream circular and downstream horseshoe sections. A gate chamber is provided for two 2.25-foot-square-high pressure emergency gates and two 2.25-foot-square high regulating gates. The 9-foot free-flow horseshoe-shaped tunnel features a design capacity of 900 cfs. Fish screens were installed at the dam in 1963, but never put to use. For the next 25 years, the rotary screen caught only debris, clogging the canals annually. Willing to unload the screen to any interested party, the FWCD made a gift of the device to the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District in October 1989.(15) Lemon Reservoir is approximately one-half mile wide and three miles long with a maximum water surface area of 622 acres and maximum water surface elevation of 8,148 feet. The reservoir`s total capacity is 40,146 acre feet, of which 39,030 acre feet are active conservation. Snowmelt from April to July provides the greatest amount of run-off into the reservoir followed by high-intensity summer and fall rainstorms. Both the Lemon Dam and Reservoir were completed in December 1963.(16) The Florida Farmers Ditch Diversion Dam is about 8 miles downstream from the Lemon Dam and was rehabilitated by Reclamation in 1962-63. The diversion dam features a concrete gravity overflow spillway section with a gated sluiceway and intake structure located near the spillway on the right abutment. The sluiceway is controlled by a 10 x 13-foot radial gate. The intake structure, designed to discharge 185 cfs into Florida Farmers Ditch is controlled by a 12-x 10-foot radial gate.(17) From the Florida Farmers Ditch Diversion Dam, 185 cfs is transferred down its lateral system south to the bifurcation with the Florida Canal. From there, water flows west through Florida Farmers` laterals to the Hood Splitter. At that point, water goes through laterals to the west side of the Project. The Florida Farmers Ditch Company and the Florida Co-op Ditch Company oversee the use of this water.(18) As construction progressed in the spring of 1962, the United States and the FWCD signed a contract to modify and extend the existing distribution system. The Florida Farmers Ditch was enlarged and relocated along 3.9 miles, and Florida Canal was also enlarged and relocated over 1.8 miles. The entire Florida carriage distribution system is five miles of cobblestone lined main canals, 10 miles of unlined main canals and 120 miles of unlined laterals and ditches. Because of the plunging elevation from the dam to the crop lands, all irrigation is done by gravity flow. At the Florida Canal, 7.5 miles downstream of Lemon Dam, 80 cfs is diverted through two 30 foot wide slide gates and transported through its laterals southwesterly to Pastorious Reservoir. Pastorious is a 200 acre-foot regulatory and holding pond. From Pastorious, water goes to the southern tip of the project through Florida Canal and canal enlargement laterals. The laterals range in capacity from two to 50 cfs and were built between June 1963 and November 1964. The cost of all project facilities totaled $11.1 million.(19)
Plan
Water is released from the reservoir as needed and conveyed in the natural river channel to the heads of the various downstream canals and ditches that divert the flow and distribute the water to project lands. In addition to the construction of Lemon Dam, Bureau of Reclamation work included rebuilding the Florida Farmers Diversion Dam, enlarging 3.9 miles of the Florida Farmers Ditch to its junction with the Florida Canal, enlarging 1.8 miles of the Florida Canal, and building a new lateral system to serve about 3,360 acres of land on the southwest portion of Florida Mesa. Project funds were advanced to the Florida Water Conservancy District to rehabilitate, enlarge, and extend the portions of the Florida Farmers Ditch and Florida Canal distribution systems that serve remaining lands on Florida Mesa. The 1,190 acres of project land located in the Florida River Valley will continue to be served by numerous small ditches without the expenditure of project funds. Lemon Dam is a zoned earthfill structure with a structural height of 284 feet and a crest length of 1,360 feet. The dam embankment has a maximum base width of 1,170 feet, a crest width of 30 feet, and contains a volume of 3,042,000 cubic yards of earth and rock materials. The spillway is on the right abutment of the dam and consists of an approach channel, concrete inlet structure, concrete ogee crest section, open concrete chute, concrete stilling basin, and outlet channel discharging into the Florida River. The design capacity of the spillway is 9,600 cubic feet per second. The outlet works is also in the right abutment of the dam and consists of an approach channel, a concrete intake structure, and a concrete-lined tunnel gate chamber for two 2.25-foot-square high pressure gates. The 9-foot horseshoe-shaped tunnel has a design capacity of 910 cubic feet per second. Lemon Reservoir is approximately 0.5 mile wide and 3 miles long with a surface area of 622 acres. The total capacity is 40,146 acre-feet, of which 39,030 acre-feet are active conservation Major rehabilitation of the Florida Farmers Diversion Dam was conducted in 1962-63. This included construction of an earthfill section for the diversion dam approximately 500 feet long at the crest, and construction of an overflow weir, headworks, sluiceway, wingwalls, and fish screens. During the same construction period, the Florida Farmers Ditch was enlarged and relocated along 3.9 miles, and Florida Canal was enlarged and relocated over 1.8 miles. The first irrigation water was delivered in 1964. Diversion works, main canals, and laterals were turned back to the Florida Water Conservancy District for operation and maintenance on April 1, 1967. Lemon Dam was turned over to the district on January 1, 1968.
Other
O`Rourke, Paul. Frontier in Transition: A History of Southwestern Colorado. Denver: Colorado State Office Bureau of Land Management, 1980. United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census. 1990 Census of Population and Housing, Mountain Division. Summary Tape File 1A. Washington, D.C.: 1991.
Contact
Contact
Organization: Florida Water Conservancy DistrictAddress: 1523 County Rd 243
City: Durango, CO 81301
Phone: 970-247-5332
Contact
Title: Area Office ManagerOrganization: Western Colorado Area Office - Durango
Address: 185 Suttle Street, Suite 2
City: Durango, CO 81303
Phone: 970-385-6500
Owner
Title: Public Affairs OfficerOrganization: Upper Colorado Regional Office
Address: 125 South State Street, Rm 7102
City: Salt Lake City, UT 84138-1102
Fax: 801-524-5499
Phone: 801-524-3774