Fort Morgan Times photo
Fort Morgan Museum collection
Fort Morgan Times photo
Fort Morgan Times photo
Fort Morgan Times photo
Fort Morgan Times photo
Fort Morgan Times image
Editor’s Note: This series is among the stories researched and written by the Community History Writers, a group of area individuals committed to documenting and writing about local history and the people, places and happenings that created the various communities within Morgan County.
Gathered round a kitchen table and using a borrowed electric typewriter, Don and Karen Christensen and five other members of what was to become the Regional Landowners Group (RLG) set out to do something no other group in American history had ever succeeded in doing: stopping a dam project that had already been authorized by the U.S. government.
This small group of Weldon Valley landowners were preparing to take on the federal government in order to stop the Narrows Dam. This dam, had it been completed, would have resulted in inundating their homes, their school, their churches, the towns of Weldona, Goodrich and Orchard, their productive farmland and their beloved valley.
They weren’t the first opponents to this project, and they may not be the last; for the Narrows Dam project keeps coming back, just like the perpetual floodwaters of the South Platte River.
Getting a nickname
In 1870, the first settlers in Weldon Valley irrigated their crops by diverting water from the South Platte River.
This river, which Mark Twain described as “sick” and “sorry,” snakes through Weldon Valley, flanked by bluffs to the north and the south.
Towards the eastern edge of the valley, the northern bluff connects with the river and comes closest to the southern bluff. This closest gap between the bluffs is called “The Narrows.”
Early water rights
Construction of the Weldon Valley Ditch was begun in 1881 and was completed in 1883.
Colorado water rights are based on the “Colorado Doctrine,” which states that whoever uses the water gets to keep on using it or “first in time, first in right.”
Sterling built its first ditch in 1873, so they have “senior” water rights over Weldona. In years of drought, the Sterling area farmers and water rights holders can “call” for the river, and Weldona may get no water at all.
In 1910, the Narrows Dam was first conceived of and filed for by the Colorado Engineering and Construction Company. The cost estimate for this project was $5 million. No action was ever taken and the filing lapsed.
Competing for water
As population increased in the South Platte River Valley, competition for the irrigation water grew.
In 1923, Colorado agreed to send 120 cubic feet of water per second to Nebraska during the peak of the irrigation season. The rest of the water was to be kept and used by Colorado.
Ever since, Colorado lawmakers have been adamant about making sure that Colorado keeps all of this water and doesn’t “waste” it by letting it go downriver to Nebraska.
In 1938, the Big Thompson Project was completed, which diverted water from the western slope of Colorado to the eastern slope. Farmers in Weldon Valley used the diverted water for their crops, and the additional water increased the flow of the languid South Platte River.
Narrows Dam resurfaces
In 1944, Congress passed the Pick-Sloan Missouri River Basin project, which authorized hundreds of water projects. That included the Narrows Dam, which was recommended for flood control.
In 1947 and 1949-50, funds were released by Congress for the construction of the Narrows Dam. An office was built at 124 Walnut St. in Fort Morgan and plans were made to construct a warehouse and 16 houses (later built at Grant and Simpson streets) for the engineers and surveyors who would be needed for the project.
According to a January 1948 Fort Morgan Times article, the government was still debating the best site to construct the dam. Three sites were in contention.
The Fort Morgan site was located two miles west of its cemetery, the Narrows dam site was located one-half mile below the Narrows bridge, and the Weldona dam would be located three miles west of Weldona.
The Narrows site was chosen. The dam would be three miles long and the maximum height would be 110 feet from the riverbed to the top of the dam. The width of the reservoir would vary between one to three miles, and it would be seven miles in length. The plan was that it would never be filled with water, so there would be ample space in case of flood.
Furthermore, flood water from the Bijou Creek could be diverted into the Narrows Dam.
Test pits and drill holes made by the army showed that the 14,000-foot-long Narrows channel dam would have its footing in “impervious Pierre Shale.”
In July 1948, $26 million was approved for the dam. Some of this money would be needed to relocate the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and Highway 144. The go-ahead was given for the Narrows project, and construction of the dam seemed eminent.
However, in January 1952 locals rose up in opposition to the project. The Weldon Valley Association was formed, and County Commissioner R. J. Lamborn took on the leadership role.
The group argued that construction of a dam in the foothills made more sense for flood control. They figured the only proponents of the project must be government officials. They called the project too expensive, expansionist and overlording, which they believed was a characteristic of federal bureaus.
The Fort Morgan Times quoted Fort Morgan Councilman Robert Mann as saying that he was “in favor of plugging a few ratholes and this one (Narrows Dam) is one big rat hole we can plug.”
Supporters hold meetings
Meanwhile, Judge Clifford B. Stone, the director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board and a huge supporter of the Narrows Dam project, was doing his best to move the project forward. He held a series of open meetings throughout the year at different locations in northeast Colorado.
A meeting held in Sterling and attended by 200 people resulted in the signing of a resolution endorsing the proposed dam and appropriating funds for it.
Lamborn attended this meeting and reported back to the Weldon Valley Association. He told them that no one was allowed to voice their opposition at the Sterling meeting.
Further, he told the Fort Morgan Times that there were 64 different groups protesting the project; 47 of which were water groups. According to Lamborn, only 10 groups supported the dam.
Reasons given for opposition to the Narrows project included: tax burden through loss of revenues; invasion of state’s rights; too extravagant a project; wrong to take federal money simply because of being afraid of someone else taking it; won’t provide flood control of the Bijou/Kiowa creeks; highly productive farmland of Weldon Valley will be taken away; Narrows Dam would be operated by the federal government; no local control; seepage will shrink the water available to farmers downstream by 33 percent; and the cost of water to farmers will be staggering because water service contracts between the U.S. government and individual farmers would be negotiated on an annual basis and based on anticipated supply and demand.
Reasons given by proponents of the project included: need for channel storage; need to store the large amounts of snowmelt that comes down the river in May/June; stored water would provide irrigation in the dry months of July/August; not wanting to lose the water that leaves Colorado unused; and engineers have studied all locations and said the Narrows site was the best option.
Despite growing opposition to the project, it looked as if it would be approved. A final meeting was to be held in the fall of 1952 in Denver, and an announcement that the dam would be built was anticipated.
Yet mention in the newspapers of the final meeting evaporated like reservoir water. Quietly, the project disappeared, after the untimely death of Judge Clifford H. Stone by a heart attack in a New Orleans hotel. The meeting in Denver was never rescheduled and the Bureau of Reclamation pulled out; dropping their request for funds. The Narrows Dam seemed dead in the water.
Not dead yet
The worries of the Weldon Valley residents and farmers about the proposed Narrows Dam project may have seemed like they were over when things faltered in 1952 and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dropped the request for federal funding of the project.
However, the uncertainty of the Narrows project still hovered over Weldon Valley like a dark cloud.
In March 1953, a family who was interested in building a home in Goodrich sent a letter to President Dwight Eisenhower, asking him if it would be safe for them to build. They asked, “Is the Narrows Dam project really dead?”
Their letter was referred to the U.S. Department of Interior, and its response to the family essentially was: although we try to take in consideration the feelings of landowners, the Narrows site is the best site. We need your land and don’t worry, when the time comes, you’ll get paid fair market value for your property.
It was all too clear that this matter was far from over.
Still, the rest of the 1950s were fairly quiet in regard to this proposed dam, and the South Platte River continued its typical flood/drought cycles.
Reviving the Narrows Dam idea
Yet, in 1958, a group of northeast Colorado farmers and businessmen asked the Colorado Water Board for assistance in reviving the Narrows project.
They sponsored a petition drive, which resulted in the formation of the Lower South Platte River Water Conservancy District.
Don Hamil, a prominent Atwood rancher and former head of REA during the Eisenhower administration, helped unify support for the proposed dam and became president of the organization. Its purpose was to serve as a contracting/negotiating agency with the federal government.
In September 1964, the Colorado Water Board approved the Narrows Dam site for the project.
In the spring of 1965, the South Platte River overflowed its banks, causing a huge three-day flood in Denver.
Colorado Gov. John Arthur Love called it the worst disaster in Colorado history.
Due to the severity of the flood, there was an outpouring of support for flood control in general and, specifically, for the Narrows Dam project.
Flooding in the Fort Morgan area wasn’t caused so much by the South Platte River, but by the higher crests flowing out of the Bijou and Kiowa creeks. Therefore, farmers and businessmen in the area called for some kind of flood protection of the Bijou and Kiowa to be included in the Narrows Dam project.
In 1966, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers explored constructing a dam in the upper Bijou Valley. They determined that the flooding was too infrequent and so it wouldn’t be worth the cost. Due to this study, the Bureau of Reclamation dropped its original plans to divert water from the Bijou Creek into the Narrows Dam.
By 1967, the Bureau of Reclamation had completed a feasibility study of the Narrows project. The estimated cost was $61.82 million.
Colorado Congressman Wayne Aspinall held the powerful and influential office of chair of the U.S. House Committee on the Interior. He was a big supporter of the project and vowed to fight for it, but only if local water users showed that they were in favor of it.
In April 1970, Gov. Love complained publicly about the massive waste of water flowing into Nebraska from the South Platter River. He said he wanted the Narrows Dam built so that water could be stored for irrigation, to provide flood control, and because he claimed its reservoir would attract 1 million visitors annually.
Land speculators started buying up parcels in the Weldon Valley, and prices spiked.
Felix Sparks, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, complained that if land prices increased too much, the project’s expense might become prohibitive.
On Sept. 9,1975, a couple of buses set out from Brush to tour the Narrows project area. Sparks told the dignitaries and other passengers aboard that local opposition to the dam had died.
So imagine their surprise when the buses pulled up to the Narrows bridge and the passengers saw about 300 protesters carrying signs such as, “Hart, Have a Heart!” and “Don’t be a Rascal, Haskell!”
The buses drove on by the demonstrators and parked nearby at the future site of the proposed dam’s spillway.
As politicians made their speeches, a woman’s voice was heard saying, “What’s going to happen to our small little lives?” And then a man spoke out, saying, “How would you like to be on your fifth generation on a farm and have it yanked out from under you?”
The protesters questioned a speaker about politicians buying up land in the valley under assumed or corporate names, and the speaker replied, “You’re getting into questions that are not in the context of this tour!”
Later, Sparks pointed out that the greatest opposition to the project’s environmental impact were wealthy duck hunters from Denver. He also said that the towns in the valley had long since died as a result of the advent of the automobile. He explained to his passengers that the locals were angry, not because they opposed the project, but because it had taken so long for the government to start buying land.
Apparently, he was out of touch with the true feelings of the residents of Weldon Valley. The seeds of the Regional Landowners Group (RLG) had already taken root and were ready to sprout.
Landowners fight back
Don and Karen Christensen and other interested landowners had already reached out for help from student lawyers volunteering for the Colorado Environmental Legal Service (CELS).
On Sept. 10, 1975, the Fort Morgan Times described a memorandum written by the service. It claimed that an alternative site, upriver from Weldon Valley in Hardin, would be much more suitable than the Narrows Dam site. There would be less seepage in this dam because of its geology. Only about 50 families would be displaced compared to 175 in Weldon Valley, plus no school would have to be closed down, since Hardin no longer had a school. The Hardin site’s closer proximity to the front range was another advantage of this location for the dam.
On Sept. 26,1975, the Regional Landowners Group was officially organized at a meeting held at the Weldon Valley School.
Don Christensen and Corky Tomky were appointed co-chairs of the group. They discussed the success of the protest at the dam site and planned strategies for fighting the project, which included mounting an advertising campaign, speaking at Fort Morgan organizations’ meetings, writing letters to the editor and government officials, and soliciting funds. The group agreed that they were willing to go to court in order to stop the Narrows project.
Don Christensen vowed: “We’re going to kill the Narrows Dam one way or the other!”
Over the next four months the RLG attended meetings, asked questions, and took their concerns to state officials, including Gov. Dick Lamm, Director of Natural Resources Harris Sherman, and Felix Sparks. Sherman and Sparks listened respectfully, but refused to back down.
“I’m not going to argue with 30 years of history,” Sparks said.
Meanwhile, 106 local businesses donated money for the landowners group’s ad campaign.
For many months, “Dam Foolishness” ads kept popping up in the Fort Morgan Times; each one outlining the reasons why the group opposed the building of the dam.
One of the slogans found in the ads stated: “If you enjoy paying taxes for a lot of nothing You’ll love the Narrows. But if you really want to save a bundle, join us in fighting ‘Dam Foolishness’ on the South Platte.”
Next in the series: Environmental impact statement issued, water lawyer sides with dam opponents