Seventy years ago, local agricultural producers were very concerned about what they were observing in Northeastern Colorado. Soil moisture levels were at 15 percent of normal, and precipitation was less than half of normal, with some locations seeing less than 40 percent of their normal readings. The figures were very similar to those of 1934, in the depths of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. 

To their west, however, were signs of hope. A newly built double barrel penstock was visible on the Rocky Mountain foothills, and with it was the promise of help coming to the rescue. 

Even though the Colorado-Big Thompson was still three years from completion, enough infrastructure was in place to supplement local water supplies with water from Lake Granby. Since the dedication of the Granby Dam five years earlier, water storage in the system climbed to more than 500,000 acre-feet of water on May 1, 1954.  

With the need for supplemental water very evident, Bureau of Reclamation operators kept the Alva B. Adams at its 550 cubic-feet-per-second capacity throughout the year, and the Project delivered more than 300,000 acre-feet of water in 1954.