Part 3: The Fry-Ark Project
By George Sibley
In 1948, after six years of study and planning, it finally happened: the Bureau of Reclamation released plans for a big project to bring water from the Gunnison River Basin through Central Colorado to the Arkansas River Basin. A really big project – exceeding the fondest dreams of Arkansas Basin water users – the “Gunnison-Arkansas Project” proposed transferring 600,000 acre-feet of water through the Continental Divide. That was twice as big as the Colorado-Big Thompson Project up north, moving West Slope water to the South Platte Basin.