From The Durango Herald (Kelcie Pegher):
The Water and Power Subcommittee spoke Tuesday with constituents from the West to decide whether removing government regulations on water-storage infrastructure would be helpful.
U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton…used the example of the Grand Mesa Water Conservancy District, which serves Delta County. The board of directors from the district made plans to rehabilitate breached reservoirs in the fall of 2008. They found various regulations stopped their construction, and it has still not been completed. Tipton also made the point that water is being directed in urban districts. He says it leaves rural areas of the West “dried up in terms of farms to feed the people that choose to live in those cities.”[…]
Dan Crabtree from the Durango office of the Bureau of Reclamation said the Animas-La Plata Project’s dam will likely be the last it builds. They are in the business of mostly municipal water, as well as rehabilitating existing dams…
Bill Midcap, the director of the Renewable Energy Center at the Rock Mountain Farmers Union, said his concern is in repairing existing infrastructure as opposed to building new dams and reservoirs.
More infrastructure coverage here.