The Senate on Friday unanimously passed Sen. Wayne Allard’s bill (S. 2594) amending the Water Conservation and Utilization Act to allow the Mancos Water Conservancy District to carry non-project water for irrigation and other beneficial uses.

The bill now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration.

However, because of the limited time remaining in this session, it is highly unlikely the bill will pass the House and become law in this session of Congress, but clearing the Senate should make its passage easier in the next Congress, experts say.

Since 1968, the MWCD has had long- and short-term contracts for the carriage of non-project water.

But Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt recently determined that projects under the water-conservation act do not have the authority to use project resources for this purpose. The short-term contracts were recently denied renewal, while the long-term contracts will be denied at their expiration.

Allard introduced the legislation after consulting with the MWCD and local officials, who said the loss of the right to carry non-project water would have serious negative consequences to agriculture, business and municipalities within the district.

"This legislation will allow Mancos Valley residents to continue to use the water which they have come to rely upon," Allard said in a press release.

Regarding the agricultural impact of the threatened cutbacks, Allard said, "The people who depend on this contract water for crop production will be forced to cut back on irrigable land, generating a hardship and commercial sacrifice in crop production if this issue is not addressed."

Gary Kennedy, superintendent of the MWCD, said Monday that the legislation, when passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the President, will let a lot of people breathe easier.

The town of Mancos, Mesa Verde National Park, and the Mancos Rural Water Company, faced with increasingly stringent clean-water requirements, can save treatment money by using water that has had a chance to settle as it passes through Jackson Gulch Reservoir.