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State water rights look appealing
Local agencies consider ways
Herald Staff Writer
At a meeting last week in Silverton, the board of the Southwestern Water Conservation District asked its staff to look beyond the immediate needs of project sponsors. Specifically, they are interested in the 10,460-acre-foot share of water allocated to the state of Colorado.
The state is one of seven partners in the A-LP - the settlement of water-right claims by Native American tribes. The project, which includes a 120,000-acre-foot reservoir (Lake Nighthorse) in Ridges Basin a mile southwest of Bodo Industrial Park, a pumping station on the Animas River and facilities in New Mexico, will provide water for household and industrial uses for three tribes and nontribal entities in Colorado and New Mexico.
A stipulation in the water-rights settlement limits partners to the use of no more than half of their allocation.
But if Colorado doesn't exercise its option - pay its share of project construction costs by the time final cost calculations are made - its 10,460 acre-feet of water (5,230 acre-feet of depletion, as it's known) pass in equal shares to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. The two tribes already own the majority of the A-LP water.
Neither Ute tribe responded immediately to a request Monday to comment on the possible use of extra water.
Southwestern Executive Director Bruce Whitehead said at the Silverton meeting that the district could be called on someday to help hands-on water districts or water providers acquire water.
Southwestern addresses only broad issues of water supply and demand that affect six counties and parts of three others in the watersheds of the Animas, San Juan, Dolores and San Miguel rivers.
"If we can help other districts or water providers, it might be worth looking at the state water," Whitehead said.
Should the state's water rights become available, Whitehead said Southwestern could help other water districts acquire those rights before they are forfeited to the tribes.
Whitehead suggested possible sources of funding to buy the state water (an estimated $28 million) could include the Colorado Water Conservation Board or the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority. The agencies can provide low-interest loans for water projects. The Conservation Board can loan up to $10 million without legislative approval and amounts greater than $10 million with legislative authorization, he said.
"It's worth exploring options," Whitehead said. "We might not get another shot at getting the water in the future."
Jim Isgar, the former state senator who resigned in June to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Office in Denver, said agencies that need water possibly could lease water from the Ute tribes if they end up with the state's share. Each tribe was allocated 16,525 acre-feet of depletion under the settlement. The Navajo Nation has 2,340 acre-feet of usable water.
Under the water-rights settlement act, the tribes didn't share in the $500 million cost of A-LP construction, and they don't pay for their water. Also, the tribes will not pay operation and maintenance costs until they begin to use their water.
A general discussion among board members and representatives of the Bureau of Reclamation, which built the A-LP, and others left it somewhat unclear where tribal water can be used - whether on only the reservations or within other water district boundaries.
The use of state water could be more "flexible" if either the court decree granting tribal water rights or the later 2000 settlement that reduced the scope of the A-LP limits the use of tribal water, they said.
Two recently formed water-interest groups already have told the state they could use some of its water. They are the La Plata-Archuleta Water District, organized to bring drinking water to southeast La Plata County and southwest Archuleta County, and the La Plata West Water Authority, which would do the same for southwest La Plata County.
La Plata West already has 700 acre-feet of usable A-LP water through the Animas La Plata Water Conservancy District, an A-LP sponsor, but it hasn't found funding to pay for it. The conservancy district also acquired 1,900 acre-feet of usable water for the city of Durango.
The Ute tribes joined La Plata West in paying for a $6 million water intake structure on Lake Nighthorse to serve the southwest corner of the county. In exchange, the tribe can use the La Plata West treatment plant and trunk lines for its own projects.
Southwestern board members asked Whitehead to push ahead with his exploratory work. Pat Page of the Bureau of Reclamation asked to kept in the loop.
"I'd like us to be flexible," said Steve Fearn, who represents San Juan County. "We don't know when, where or how much water we're going to need."
John Taylor, the Hinsdale County representative, said: "I'd like us to have access to some of that (state) water."
Larry Deremo from Dolores County said, "Let's look at the options. Someone will need water, and now will be the cheapest we'll ever get it."
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