Ridenbaugh Press/Water Rights

The Bureau of Reclamation and the state of Colorado are continuing negotiations on a proposed repayment contract for water from the Animas-La Plata Project. The contract will provide the terms and conditions by which the state will repay the construction costs associated with all or a portion of its statutory allocation of project water. The fifth negotiation meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 7, 2012, at 8:30 a.m. at Reclamation’s office, 835 E. 2nd Ave., Suite 300, Durango, Colo. 81301.

The contract to be negotiated will provide for storage and delivery of project water and identify the amount of project construction costs to be paid to the federal government by the state.

All negotiations are open to the public as observers, and the public will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer comments pertaining to the contract during a thirty minute comment period following the negotiation session.

The Bureau of Reclamation and the state of Colorado are continuing negotiations on a proposed repayment contract for the Animas-La Plata Project. The contract will provide the terms and conditions by which the state will repay the construction costs associated with all or a portion of its statutory allocation of project water. The fourth negotiation meeting is scheduled for Friday, January 20, 2012, at 08:00 a.m. at Reclamation’s office, 835 E. 2nd Ave., Suite 300, Durango, Colo. 81301.

The contract to be negotiated will provide for storage and delivery of project water, identify the amount of project construction costs to be paid to the federal government by the state, and provide for operation and maintenance of the project.

All negotiations are open to the public as observers, and the public will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer comments pertaining to the contract during a thirty minute comment period following the negotiation session.

The Bureau of Reclamation and the state of Colorado are continuing negotiations on a proposed repayment contract for the Animas-La Plata Project. The contract will provide the terms and conditions by which the state will repay the construction costs associated with all or a portion of its statutory allocation of project water. The third negotiation meeting is scheduled for Wednesday August 10, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. at Reclamation’s office, 835 E. 2nd Ave., Suite 300, Durango, Colo. 81301.

The contract to be negotiated will provide for storage and delivery of project water, identify the amount of project construction costs to be paid to the federal government by the state, and provide for operation and maintenance of the project.

All negotiations are open to the public as observers, and the public will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer comments pertaining to the contract during a thirty minute comment period following the negotiation session.

The Bureau of Reclamation and the state of Colorado are continuing negotiations on a proposed repayment contract for the Animas-La Plata Project. The contract will provide the terms and conditions by which the state will repay the construction costs associated with all or a portion of its statutory allocation of project water. The second negotiation meeting is scheduled for Wednesday April 6, 2011, at 9:00 a.m. at Reclamation’s office, 835 E. 2nd Ave., Suite 300, Durango, Colorado 81301.

The contract to be negotiated will provide for storage and delivery of project water, identify the amount of project construction costs to be paid to the federal government by the state, and provide for operation and maintenance of the project.

All negotiations are open to the public as observers, and the public will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer comments pertaining to the contract during a thirty minute comment period following the negotiation session.

Reclamation’s Western Colorado Area Office said on February 17 that it will start negotiations on a proposed repayment contract for the Animas-La Plata Project with the state of Colorado for all or a portion of the state’s statutory allocation of project water. The first negotiation meeting is scheduled for Friday, February 25, 2011, at 9:00 a.m. at the Bureau of Reclamation’s office, 835 E. 2nd Ave., Suite 300, Durango, Colo. 81301.

The contract to be negotiated will provide for storage and delivery of project water, identify the amount of project construction costs to be paid to the federal government by the state, and provide for operation and maintenance of the project.

All negotiations are open to the public as observers, and the public will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer comments pertaining to the contract during a thirty minute comment period following the negotiation session.

The proposed contract and other pertinent documents will be available at the negotiation meeting, or can be obtained on our website under Current Focus or by contacting Brett Griffin of the Bureau of Reclamation, 835 East Second Avenue, Suite 300, Durango, Colorado, 81301, telephone (970) 385-6531 or e-mail bgriffin@usbr.gov.

Four northwest New Mexico cities are suing the state engineer’s office, saying the should allow the cities to use much more water than it allowed from the Animas-La Plata project.

The recently-completed Animas-LaPlata project was designed to supply water to a number of users in the region. Its operator, the Bureau of Reclamation, said that “The project is being built to fulfill the water rights settlement of the two Indian tribes that live in Colorado – the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. These tribes have water rights that date back to 1868. Fulfillment of the settlement obligations, one of which is completing the Animas-La Plata Project, will provide non-Indian water users in Southwest Colorado certainty to the continued, historical use of water. Storage is an important aspect of water supply in the semi-arid western United States, where there is usually not a reliable, regular flow of sufficient water in streams and rivers to meet water needs year round. Lastly, the project will provide nearly 33% of the storage in Lake Nighthorse for use by non-Indian entities in the Four Corners region.”

The cities of Farmington, Aztec and Bloomfield are among them, but they have been receiving much less water than they originally had expected. The project as outlined by Congress in its original 1968 authorization called for much larger water levels, but also a much larger project than the one completed in the last decade.

The suit against the engineer’s office may eventually go to federal court.

[see the Farmington (NM) Daily Times, July 21.]

Ridges Basin area, artist’s conception

The Animas-LaPlata water project, authorized in 1968, stalled a few years later, re-started in 1988, finally has flowing water. Actual construction did not begin until 2001.

The water from the project will supply the New Mexico Navajo Tribe, two smaller Ute tribes and two cities, Durango, Colorado, and Farmington, New Mexico. Water will flow as well into a new reservoir, Lake Nighthorse (a reference to former Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who was deeply involved with the project).

From a federal description of the latter phases of the project: “On August 11, 1998, the Secretary of the Interior presented an Administration Proposal to build a down-sized version of ALP to implement the Colorado Ute water rights settlement, eliminated all irrigation, and included a nonstructural element as part of the settlement implementation. A Final Supplemental EIS (FSEIS) was completed and filed with EPA on July 14, 2000 followed by a Record of Decision on September 25, 2000. On December 21, 2000, Public Law 106-554, the Colorado Ute Settlement Act Amendments of 2000 was enacted. Public Law 106-554 provides for the construction of a scaled down project: Ridges Basin Dam and Reservoir, Durango Pumping Plant, Ridges Basin Inlet conduit, with an average annual depletion of 57,100 acre-feet. The law also provides for the construction of a pipeline to deliver water for domestic use on the Navajo Nation at Shiprock, New Mexico.”

[See the project web site for detailed background. See also Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, May 5]