House approves

House approves $16 million for Animas-La Plata

June 30, 2001

Journal Staff Report

The long-delayed Animas-La Plata Project took a giant step Thursday toward becoming reality when the U.S. House passed a bill providing $16 million in start-up funding for the dam proposal for fiscal year 2002.

The funding was included in a broader, $23 billion Water and Appropriations bill, which now will head to the Senate for consideration.

Backers of A-LP had sought $21.6 million for first-year funding of the project, which is scheduled to be completed within seven years, but President Bush included just $12 million for A-LP in his budget proposal. The House then boosted the amount to $16 million.

Another $8 million was appropriated in the Interior spending bill for the project’s tribal resource fund, which is expected to total $40 million over five years. The fund, which will be split between the Ute Mountain and Southern Utes, is to compensate the tribes for water they are entitled to but will not receive under the project because of endangered-species concerns.

"I spoke to the (Ute Mountain tribal) chairman (Ernest House) earlier today and he said, ‘Did you see this?’ and he said, ‘That’s great’," commented Ute Mountain Administrator Wilfred Madrid on Friday. "He’s been doing the majority of the lobbying in Washington for this for the last 20 years."

House was not available for comment Friday.

"We’re pleased with this appropriation, but we’re by no means satisfied," said U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.) in a press release. McInnis is a leading proponent of A-LP. "Satisfaction doesn’t come until the project is built, and we’ve got a lot of work yet to do before we get to that point."

A-LP was first authorized by Congress in 1968 as a massive project that would have cost more than $700 million. It has been delayed ever since because of concerns about its cost and its environmental effects, including its impact on endangered fish in the San Juan River Basin.

The project was later envisioned as a means for satisfying Indian water rights that had been pledged to the Ute tribes in the 19th century and granted under the Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 1988.

After years of wrangling and negotiations, a scaled-down version of A-LP was developed. Now projected to cost $270 million to $350 million, that version was passed overwhelmingly by the Senate late last year and was approved by the House as a rider attached to a spending bill.

The current project entails building a 120,000-acre-foot off-stream reservoir south of Durango on Ridges Basin. Water from the Animas (the La Plata is no longer involved directly in the project) would be siphoned out of the river and pumped uphill to the reservoir.

A total of 57,100 acre-feet of water is allowed to be depleted from the river annually. The bulk of that water will be allocated to the two Ute tribes, with smaller amounts going to the Navajo Nation, water districts in Colorado and New Mexico, the state of Colorado, and New Mexico’s San Juan Water Commission.

No water is allotted to non-Indian irrigators.

The scaled-down version of A-LP won over many former critics, but opponents maintain that the project is a waste of taxpayer money. They say Indian water rights could be satisfied through a non-structural alternative.

"We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars and vast amounts of electricity, which seems to be in short supply at the moment, to put water in a reservoir, where it’s going to evaporate," said Michael Black of the Durango-based Taxpayers for the Animas River.

Opponents have also been critical of the fact that the tribes have not said definitively what they will do with the water once they get it. The project does not include funding for a delivery system to carry water to either tribe.

But A-LP’s proponents say the streamlined project is a no-frills, environmentally sensitive way to resolve the Utes’ water-rights claims. The project survived a last-minute push by the Sierra Club, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and other environmental groups to have it removed from the Water and Power Appropriation package.

"An overwhelming bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives once more affirmed its support for this Indian water-rights settlement plan," McInnis said.

The $16 million, if it gains final approval from Congress, will be used to do preliminary work such as relocating a road and pipelines, and surveying and excavating the numerous cultural sites in the dam area.