The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam from 400 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 350 cfs for Friday, April 18th, at 4:00 AM.ย Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell).ย The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. ย The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
View of Denver and Rio Grande (Silverton Branch) Railroad tracks and the Animas River in San Juan County, Colorado; shows the Needle Mountains. Summer, 1911. Denver Public Library Special Collections
Water and environmental groups in southwestern Colorado have not heard a peep from the federal government since their $25.6 million grant got caught up in a widespread funding freeze, officials say.
Southwestern Water Conservation District pulled together a unique collection of partners in 2024 to tap into an immense stack of federal cash for environmental projects in the Colorado River Basin. The partners were โecstaticโ Jan. 17 when they found out their application to fund 17 projects was accepted, Steve Wolff, district manager, said.
Three days later, President Donald Trump paused spending, and the districtโs partnership has been in limbo ever since. Other Colorado groups are in the same boat with millions of dollars of awarded grant funding on the line.
โEverybody had heard that they were going to be looking at the funding โฆ so it was no big surprise,โ Wolff said March 26. โThe confusion was nobody knew what was in or out of all these freezes, or pulled back, at all. We still have not heard officially anything.โ
The Bureau of Reclamation, which awarded the grant, declined to comment and referred questions to its parent agency, the Department of the Interior. Interior did not respond to questions from The Colorado Sun about the fundingโs status.
โUnder President Donald J. Trumpโs leadership, the Department is working to cut bureaucratic waste and ensure taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently,โ an unnamed Interior spokesperson said in an emailed response from the Bureau of Reclamation. โProjects are being individually assessed by period of performance, criticality and other criteria.โ
The uncertainty has impacted a slew of environmental projects across the Upper Colorado River Basin โ Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Under the Biden administration, the Bureau of Reclamation awarded $388.5 million for water and drought-related projects across the Upper Basin on Jan. 17. Of that, Coloradans secured $177 million.
Coloradans wanted to use that money to help fish find shelter when the stateโs rivers are at their lowest. They wanted to help farmers and ranchers have a more reliable water supply by fixing decades-old irrigation ditches. Some projects planned to remove dams or turn wastewater lagoons into wetlands.
Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant back in the days before I-70 via Aspen Journalism
One award for $40 million to help a Western Slope water district buy an old and powerful Colorado River water right tied to the Shoshone Power Plant.
In southwestern Colorado, the organizations that were awarded funding were wondering if they should try to wait it out to see what happens or seek funding elsewhere.
โItโs incredibly stressful,โ said Danyelle Leentjes with the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership. โItโs really hard to move forward in this landscape. Itโs super, super hard.โ
A new collaboration
Southwestern Water Conservation District started pulling together partners in 2023. Staff knew a load of federal funding was coming down the pike, and they wanted to build collaborations so local groups could access it, Wolff said.
โI donโt think the districtโs ever been involved in anything like this before,โ he said.
Water districts, ditch companies, environmental organizations and others often have small staffs in the rural district, which spans nine counties. The groups have little extra time to take on the application or little experience with federal grants. They might not have extra funding to hire a grant writer. Some, like nonprofits, werenโt eligible to apply for the funding without a governmental agency โ like Southwestern โ to manage the money as a fiscal agency.
Southwestern Water Conservation District and its partners identified 17 projects in their federal funding application in fall 2024. The projects aimed to remove blockages from rivers and irrigation ditches to help fish and farmers; stabilize river banks; turn waste lagoons into wetlands and more. (Southwestern Water Conservation District, Contributed)
โWeโd repeatedly seen places where individuals or small groups didnโt have the capacity to work on federal funding or even state funding,โ Wolff said.
So the conservation district stepped in: It asked organizations to add ready-to-go water projects to a centralized list, dubbed the โpipeline.โ About 30 entities joined the effort. The district got grants from the state of Colorado and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership to hire people to organize the process and write the grant application.
Without the grants, the application never would have gotten off the ground, Wolff said.
โThereโs two of us here. Our plates are full,โ he said, referring to the districtโs full-time staff. โWe couldโve never done it.โ
And when the federal funding application finally opened in fall 2024, the partnership could whip together a successful 17-project application for $25.6 million in weeks.
Wolff didnโt think any of the partnering organizations had applied for a grant that size, he said.
โI was ecstatic we got the full award,โ Wolff said. โIt seemed like the previous 18 months of effort had just paid off.โ
Funding uncertainty
The uncertainty for Southwestern, however, is tied to the funding source for their grant: the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.
The law included $4 billion to mitigate drought and prioritized the Colorado River Basin, the water supply for 40 million people. Of that total, $500 million was for projects that would address drought impacts or cut water use in the Upper Basin.
One executive order, called Unleashing American Energy, paused spending to give federal agencies 90 days to review whether funded projects aligned with the administrationโs energy policies.
Past regulations have been burdensome and impeded the development of the countryโs energy resources, according to the executive order.
That 90-day period ends April 20, but it was unclear Friday whether that deadline is still in effect or applies to the funding awarded to Colorado. Interior and Reclamation did not respond to clarifying questions from The Colorado Sun.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Colorado Republican, has generally supported the efforts to cut spending at the federal level, according to news reports. He did not respond to a request for comment Friday, but he has called for freeing up funding to purchase the historic Shoshone water rights on the Colorado River.
U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, both Colorado Democrats, have advocated for federal funds meant for Colorado to be released.
โSen. Bennet believes President Trumpโs shortsighted cuts to commonsense Colorado projects jeopardize rural communities, agricultural producers, and businesses across the state,โ Bennetโs staff said in a prepared statement. โGrantees should receive the resources that were appropriated by Congress and promised by the Administration to complete their work.โ
In early March, Southwestern and its partners had an open conversation about what to do with the regional director of Bennetโs office, John Whitney.
The strategy at the time, given the bipartisan support for the funding, was to have quiet conversations with Reclamation and Interior, Whitney told the gathering at the Southwestern Water Conservation Districtโs office in Durango.
โThere may come a time when we have to stand up and raise our hand to be the squeaky wheel, to demand the money be released,โ he said. โWe donโt think thatโs where we stand right now. We think an approach of quiet advocacy and outreach is the best.โ
Mancos and the Mesa Verde area from the La Plata Mountains.
Impacts in southwestern Colorado
Members of the Southwestern partnership have stuck to that strategy so far, but the uncertainty has been hard to bear.
The Bureau of Reclamation awarded $2.2 million to the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership for a project that would clear concrete slabs and steel out of an irrigation ditch to help the agricultural community; fix damage to the Upper San Juan River from a landslide; and plant willows and reshape the river channel to help aquatic ecosystems.
โYou canโt really proceed on anything. You can just hope that it goes,โ Leentjes said.
Leentjes is paid to keep these projects moving forward โ and without funding to make that happen, she spent a month wondering if she needed to look for jobs.
San Juan River Basin. Graphic credit Wikipedia.
It is also one of the first big projects for the Upper San Juan partnership after months of working with community members to identify which priorities should come first.
Their reputation is on the line, she said.
The Webber Ditch Company asked for $2.1 million to finally repair a 113-year-old diversion that sends water from the Mancos River to about 75 farmers and ranchers. The ditch company has been doing quick fixes on the rickety headgate for decades, Mike Nolan, company vice president, said.
โIt could fail us in a season. Thatโs always been our biggest fear. Say we get wild monsoon rains and the river picks up, we could potentially lose that structure,โ Nolan said. โThat could happen at a critical time for our water users. We could Band-Aid it, but thatโs not something we want to happen.โ
The Mancos Conservation District had several projects in mind. Staff wanted to cut back thirsty invasive plants, like Russian olive trees, and improve a river put-in next to a local school in Mancos. They had projects to help with fish passage when the river is low, district executive director Danny Margoles said.
โItโs been a complicated number of months for us,โ he said. The district had to lay off an employee and halt work on a project after the Trump administration canceled a different federal grant that was already contracted, confirmed and paying out.
The organizations were concerned about rippling impacts to state grants. Local organizations often use federal grants to cover their funding โmatchโ for state grants. Now those federal grants are uncertain, and theyโre not sure what the impact will be.
Margoles said he can sense the feelings of stress and uncertainty among his staff.
โEveryoneโs hanging in there,โ Margoles said. โEveryone does believe in the work theyโre doing, so thatโs what is keeping everyone going right now too. But thereโs a lot of uncertainty.โ
F Street in Salida February 2025. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
April 8, 2025
Federal funds for climate-change-related projects in Colorado have started arriving in almost perfect concert with the spring thaw.
Among the applications for the hundreds of millions of dollars will be:
energy efficiency work in southwestern Colorado communities,
curbing methane emissions from old coal mines west of Carbondale, and,
preparation of a climate action plan for the Yampa Valley.
Among the smaller grants, $187,605 went to Salida and Chaffee County. The money will fund a staff position shared by the two jurisdictions to create a greenhouse gas inventory, a climate action plan, and then the means to implement what the city and county decide to do.
That grant and seven others for rural Colorado jurisdictions from the U.S. Department of Energy totaling $1.865 million were announced in August 2024. The federal program had received key funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
The awards were temporarily frozen by President Donald Trump.
The money is largely to be used for staffing for climate action planning but also for workforce training in communities where extraction and combustion of fossil fuels has been fading.
โCapacity is an essential component of local climate action, and these new awards will play an important role in enabling this work in Coloradoโs rural and mountain communities,โ Christine Berg, senior policy advisor for local governments in the Colorado Energy Office, said in the August 2024 announcement.
A far larger grant of $200 million to the Denver Regional Council of Governments, or DRCOG, had been announced in July 2024.
That money, a product of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, was to have been used for retrofits of buildings in the nine-county metropolitan area. DRCOG did not respond to repeated requests as to whether the money has been unthawed or is expected to be.
The Colorado Energy Office had been awarded $129 million. A spokesperson confirmed the money has arrived. It will be used:
To deploy advanced methane monitoring technology to produce data that will inform regulatory policy concerning methane emissions from landfills and coal mines, including those in the Redstone-Paonia area.
For energy efficiency and electrification upgrades in large commercial buildings that are otherwise hard to decarbonize.
To help local governments to implement projects that help reduce emissions from buildings, transportation, electric power, waste and other economic sectors. The money is to be administered through a new program, the Local Government Climate Action Accelerator.
Part of the $129 million received by the Colorado Energy Office will be used to work on large commercial buildings that are hard to decarbonize. Photo/Allen Best
What melted the ice?
The Trump administrationโs budget office on Jan. 20 had ordered a pause on previously promised funds if they helped advance the โgreen new deal,โ as the Congressional laws adopted when Joe Biden was president have been called. A federal court issued a temporary restraining order in late January, but the Trump administration seemed to ignore it.
Colorado in early February joined 21 other states and the District of Columbia in asking the court to require the federal agencies to release the money.
Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, at the time declared that the federal government had signed contracts granting more than $500 million to Colorado through the 2021 and 2022 federal laws. โBy not meeting these contractual obligations, the federal government is inflicting real harm on our state,โ he said in a statement posted on the CEO website.
The Trump administration seemed to ignore the legal requirement, and a federal court judge on March 6 ordered the administration to comply.
Judge John J. McConnell Jr., of the Federal District Court for the District of Rhode Island, said the case amounted to executive overreach. The directive from the White House budget office, he said in a New York Times story, โfundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.โ Without his action, he said, โthe funding that the states are due and owed creates an indefinite limbo.โ A federal appeals court on March 26 upheld that decision.
On March 28, Colorado Energy Office spokesman Ari Rosenblum reported that the $129 million in funding announced last summer for the state agency has been unfrozen.
โWe are moving forward with work on all projects funded through this grant,โ he wrote in an e-mail in response to a query from Big Pivots. โWe expect to launch the Local Government Climate Action Accelerator this summer.โ
What melted the ice?
The Trump administrationโs budget office on Jan. 20 had ordered a pause on previously promised funds if they helped advance the โgreen new deal,โ as the Congressional laws adopted when Joe Biden was president have been called. A federal court issued a temporary restraining order in late January, but the Trump administration seemed to ignore it.
Colorado in early February joined 21 other states and the District of Columbia in asking the court to require the federal agencies to release the money.
Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, at the time declared that the federal government had signed contracts granting more than $500 million to Colorado through the 2021 and 2022 federal laws. โBy not meeting these contractual obligations, the federal government is inflicting real harm on our state,โ he said in a statement posted on the CEO website.
The Trump administration seemed to ignore the legal requirement, and a federal court judge on March 6 ordered the administration to comply.
Judge John J. McConnell Jr., of the Federal District Court for the District of Rhode Island, said the case amounted to executive overreach. The directive from the White House budget office, he said in a New York Times story, โfundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.โ Without his action, he said, โthe funding that the states are due and owed creates an indefinite limbo.โ A federal appeals court on March 26 upheld that decision.
On March 28, Colorado Energy Office spokesman Ari Rosenblum reported that the $129 million in funding announced last summer for the state agency has been unfrozen.
โWe are moving forward with work on all projects funded through this grant,โ he wrote in an e-mail in response to a query from Big Pivots. โWe expect to launch the Local Government Climate Action Accelerator this summer.โ
Projects in rural Colorado
The $1.8 million grant โ this is in addition to the program for local assistance that the Colorado Energy Office created with its $129 million โ funded projects for Salida and Chaffee County and these additional rural communities:
$240,000 for Lake County to support a new position to lead development of the countyโs first climate action plan and implement the countyโs climate initiatives in and around Leadville. These and other similar positions are for three years.
$240,000 to the Colorado River Valley Economic Development Partnership, which has representatives of municipalities from New Castle and Silt on the east and Parachute and Battlement Mesa, as well as parts of unincorporated Garfield County. The project has a strong emphasis on workforce development and new job training in a county that formerly had a strong component of fossil fuel extraction.
$264,100 to the Routt County Climate Action Plan Collaborative. The money is to scale up electrification in Hayden, Oak Creek, Steamboat Springs and Yampa as well as other parts of Rout County. As with the Colorado River communities, there will be a workforce development and job training component as two coal-burning units at Hayden will close in the next several years. The coal for the plant comes from Twentymile Mine.
$240,000 to Pueblo and Pueblo County for a staff position for implementing city and county sustainability projects.
$240,000 to the City of Durango for a staff position to be housed within the Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency to work with La Plata Electric Association and the city government to implement energy efficiency and so forth.
$191,100 to EcoAction Partners, a consortium of San Miguel and Ouray counties along with the towns of Telluride, Mountain Village, Ophir, and Norward. This money is to provide staffing to assist the 10 jurisdiction members with climate action plan projects and programming implementation.
$262,194 to Larimer County to help with staffing to develop a climate action plan for Estes Park and ensure alignment with Larimer County climate Smart Future Ready plan.
A $240,000 grant was awarded to the City of Durango to work with the a local non-profit group, the Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency, and La Plata Electric Association on energy efficiency. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Salida tree grant
Salida will also receive another $250,000 to cover the costs of planting trees in a somewhat newer but lower-income neighborhood during the next five years.
The older part of Salida that can be seen along F Street, the townโs older commercial corridor, has many tall shade trees. The townโs southeast corner, though, is an area converted from light industrial and commercial into manufactured and other housing. It has a paucity of trees.
Sara Law, Salidaโs sustainability coordinator and public information officer, explained that Salida expects to get hotter during summer months in coming decades because of accumulating greenhouse gases. The goal was to get medium- to low-tree covers to help provide cooling on those hot days of summer.
Awardees of that grant program, including Salida, are now able to work on their tree projects and submit for reimbursement.
Teddy Parker-Renga, associate director of communications and communities for the Colorado State Forest Service, reported on March 31 that awardees of that particular grant program, including Salida, had become eligible that day to submit reimbursements for their work. The money comes from the U.S. Forest Service and grants are administered by the Colorado State Forest Service.
At an elevation of 7,400 feet, Salida has a climate warm enough to accommodate rattlesnakes. They can be encountered on hiking trails of nearby Methodist Mountain, the northernmost peak in the Sangre de Cristo Range. Salidaโs all-time high temperature record of 102 degrees was set in July 2019.
Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):
April 4, 2025
We are heading into a remarkable year on New Mexicoโs Middle Rio Grande. Here are some critical factors:
The preliminary April 1 forecast from the NRCS is for 27 percent of median April โ July runoff at Otowi, the key measurement gage for New Mexicoโs Middle Rio Grande.
Current reservoir storage above us is basically nothing.
Reclamationโs most recent forecast model runs suggest flow through Albuquerque peaked in February. It usually peaks in May.
We will learn a great deal this year.
What Iโm Watching
New Mexico water projects map via Reclamation
City Water
At last nightโs meeting of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authorityโs Technical Customer Advisory Committee, water rights manager Diane Agnew said the utility is planning to shut down its river diversions, shifting system operations to groundwater, by the end of April. Albuquerque invested ~half a billion dollars in its river diversion system, in order to make direct use of our San Juan-Chama Project water, to relieve pressure on the aquifer. This will be the fifth year in a row that Rio Grande flows have been so low that we canโt use the new system for a substantial part of the year.
(For the nerds, Dianeโs incredibly useful slides from last nightโs TCAC meeting are here, the 4/3/2025 agenda packet.)
We have groundwater. My taps will still run, and Iโll be able to water my yard. But weโll once again be putting stress on the aquifer that weโve been trying to rest, to set aside as a safety reserve for the future. Is that future already here?
Reclamation operates pumps to move water from the Low Flow Conveyance Channel into the Rio Grande. The LFCC acts as a drain for the lower part of the Middle Rio Grande.
Irrigation
Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District irrigators who depend on ditch water are going to have a tough year, with supplies running short very early. The impacts here are a little weird.
Most of the relatively small number of the non-Indian full-on commercial farmers have supplemental wells. Smaller operators, who farm as a second income, will have to rely on their first income, whatever that is, and hope for some monsoon rains to get more cuttings of hay. Lots of hobby farmers will just run their domestic wells, or buy hay for their horses from out of state.
Native American farming is a more complicated story that I donโt fully understand. State and federal law recognize the fact that they were here first โ we really do kinda comply with the doctrine of prior appropriation here. Their priority rights โ โprior and paramountโ โ were enshrined in federal law in the 1928 act of Congress that kicked in federal money through the predecessor of the Bureau of Indian Affairs โ crucial money to get construction of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District started when no one else โ neither the rest of the federal government, nor the bond market โ was willing to pony up the money. (Buy our new book Ribbons of Green, as soon as UNM Press publishes it! It includes a deep dive into the critical role of the Pueblos in supporting the formation and early funding of the MRGCD, without which there likely would be no MRGCD.)
Is there a way to set aside some prior and paramount water for Pueblo farmers this year to keep their fields green?
Side channels were excavated by the Bureau of Reclamation along the Rio Grande where it passes through the Rhodesโ property to provide habitat for the endangered silvery minnow. (Dustin Armstrong/U.S. Bureau Of Reclamation)
River Drying
The Rio Grande through Albuquerque will go dry, or nearly so, in a way we havenโt seen since the early 1980s. That means a very tough year for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. Weโre testing the boundaries of the definition of โextinctionโ. (To understand the minnow story, I again commend you to my Utton Center colleague Rin Taraโs terrific look at the minnow past and future.)
Do people care, either about the minnow or the river itself? Weโll find out!
Birds and water at Bosque de Apache New Mexico November 9, 2022. Photo credit: Abby Burk
Bosque
Our riverside woods, a ribbon of cottonwood gallery forest that took root in the mid-20th century between the levees built by the Bureau of Reclamation, will likely stay relatively green. The trees dip their roots into the shallow aquifer. As weโve seen with the more routine river drying that happens every year to the south, the bosque muddles through.
New Mexico Lakes, Rivers and Water Resources via Geology.com.
At its Feb. 13 meeting, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors approved increases in rates and other fees for 2025. The increases include a 3 percent increase on water rates and fill station charges and a 10 percent increase on wastewater rates, with wastewater availability of service and wastewater hauler charges rising by 30 percent.
The monthly service charge for water increased from $32.38 to $33.35 with the volume charge per 1,000 gallons growing from $5.81 to $5.98 for 2,001 to 8,000 gallons of usage, from $11.63 to $11.98 for 8,001 to 20,000 gallons of usage and from $14.60 to $15.04 for more than 20,001 gallons of usage. Water fill station charges per 1,000 gallons rose from $12.55 to $12.93, and water availability of service fees increased from $14.73 to $15.17.
Monthly service charges for wastewater increased from $42.64 per equivalent unit (EU) to $46.90 per EU while the short-term rental monthly service charge rose from $59.70 to $65.66. Wastewater availability of service fees increased from $16.25 to $21.13 per month, and wastewater hauler charges per 100 gallons of waste rose from $17.26 to $22.44. Water and wastewater capital investment fees also increased by 3 percent, taking the water capital investment fee from $8,958 to $9,227 and the wastewater capital investment fee from $15,697 to $16,168…Although not noted by Burns, the fee changes also include an increase of water equity buy-in fees from $4,323 to $4,706 and a decrease in wastewater equity buy-in fees from $3,425 to $3,372.
Elk Creek Marina at Blue Mesa Reservoir on the Gunnison River was temporarily closed so the docks could be moved out into deeper water in 2021 after federal officials made emergency releases from the reservoir to prop up a declining Lake Powell. Upper Colorado River Basin officials are requesting monthly drought-monitoring meetings with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in hopes of avoiding future last-minute emergency releases. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Water managers are preparing for another potentially lackluster runoff this year in the Colorado River Basin.
At a meeting Tuesday, water managers from the Upper Colorado River Commission agreed to write a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation asking for a monthly meeting to monitor drought conditions. Officials from the four Upper Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) are hoping to avoid a repeat of 2021 when emergency reservoir releases caught them off guard.
โWe want to be as prepared as possible since hydrology has flipped pretty quickly in previous years,โ said UCRC Executive Director Chuck Cullom. โWe think itโs prudent to collectively review the forecast and the water supply so that we arenโt caught in the situation we were in in 2021.โ
Pine River Marina at Navajo Reservoir. Photo credit: Reclamation
From July through October of that year, Reclamation made emergency releases from three Upper Basin reservoirs: 20,000 acre-feet from Navajo, on the San Juan River; 125,000 acre-feet from Flaming Gorge, on the Green River; and 36,000 acre-feet from Blue Mesa, on the Gunnison River. The goal was to boost water levels at Lake Powell, which had fallen to a critical elevation, and ensure that Glen Canyon Dam could still produce hydroelectric power.
View below Flaming Gorge Dam from the Green River, eastern Utah. Photo credit: USGS
Guidelines for Upper Basin reservoir releases are laid out in the Drought Response Operations Agreement, which was signed in 2019 by the Upper Basin states and the federal government. The three reservoirs are part of the Colorado River Storage Project, and the federal government can authorize emergency releases from them without permission from the states or local entities.
But Colorado water managers were not happy about the timing or lack of notice from the bureau when the emergency releases happened in 2021. Drawing down Blue Mesa, Coloradoโs largest reservoir, during the height of the summer boating season forced marinas to close early for the year and was a blow to the stateโs outdoor recreation economy.
โItโs February, and we are seeing hydrology that could potentially impact reservoir operations,โ Cullom said. โLetโs plan for it rather than reacting over a weeklong period. Weโre trying to preempt some of the concerns and criticisms of reservoir operations in 2021.โ
Water year 2021 was historically bad, with an Upper Basin snowpack that was near normal at 93% of average but translated to only 36% of average runoff into Lake Powell, the second-worst runoff on record. One of the culprits was exceptionally thirsty soils, which soaked up snowmelt before runoff made it to streams, due to 2020โs hot and dry summer and fall.
Credit: Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism
Officials said current conditions could be setting the basin up for another year like 2021. Alex Pivarnik, a supervisor with the bureauโs Upper Colorado Operations Office, presented the latest data to commissioners Tuesday.
โComing into the winter, soil-moisture conditions were pretty much dry throughout most of the basin,โ Pivarnik said. โAnd January was a really bad month for us in the basin. โฆ Coming into February, it was kind of a make-or-break for us.โ
Those numbers, taking into account snowpack conditions up until Feb. 5, were down from Januaryโs most probable runoff forecast, which put Lake Powellโs spring inflow at 81% of average and total Powell inflow for water year 2025 at 82% of average.
After a storm cycle that brought snow to mountain ranges throughout the Upper Basin over Presidents Day weekend, snowpack for the Upper Basin stood at 94% of median as of Wednesday. In 2021, Upper Basin-wide snowpack on Feb. 19 was 89%.
โWhile the snow brought us some positivity, I still like to remind folks when we see Lake Powell at 35% full, that means itโs 65% empty and thatโs troubling,โ said Becky Mitchell, Coloradoโs representative to the UCRC. โI want to note that weโve been slightly optimistic because of the snow, but it still does not look as good as weโd like.โ
Mitchell acted as chair of Tuesdayโs UCRC meeting after former chair and federal representative Anne Castle was asked to resign by Trump administration officials last month. A new federal representative to the UCRC has not yet been appointed.
Snowpack for the Upper Colorado River Basin, water years 2021 vs. 2025
This chart shows how much snowpack has been measured at various SNOTEL stations located in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Snowpack for the Upper Colorado River Basin, water years 2021 vs. 2025 This chart shows how much snowpack has been measured at various SNOTEL stations located in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Chart: Laurine Lassalle – Aspen JournalismSource: SNOTEL Get the dataCreated with Datawrapper
This is a critical time for Colorado River management as the Upper Basin states are in talks with the Lower Basin states (California, Arizona, Nevada) about how the nationโs two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, will be operated and cuts will be shared after 2026 when the current guidelines expire. Overuse, drought and climate change have driven reservoir levels to their lowest points ever in recent years.
Cullom gave an overview of the timeline needed to implement a new plan for post-2026 operations. The seven basin states need to reach agreement on a plan by early summer; the bureau would issue a final environmental impact statement by the spring of 2026 and a record of decision by August 2026. New guidelines would take effect in water year 2027, which begins Oct. 1, 2026.
Negotiations with the Lower Basin states, which ground to a halt at the end of 2024, have resumed, and Upper Basin commissioners said they are hopeful that they will reach a consensus. Failure to do so would mean river management decisions would be imposed by the federal government, which is something that state representatives want to avoid.
โA consensus is the best option out there for everyone, and Iโm hopeful that weโll get there,โ Mitchell said, adding that โthe highest level of certainty that we will have as seven basin states is if we can determine our own future. โฆ I want to reiterate that we are committed to work with the Lower Basin states toward that seven-state consensus.โ
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
Lee Ferry, the dividing line between the upper and lower basin states of the Colorado River Basin. Photo credit: Allen Best
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
January 28, 2025
Itโs part of a theme. Does Colorado need to start planning for potential Colorado River curtailments?
Snow in southwestern Colorado has been scarce this winter. Archuleta County recently had a grass fire. A store manager at Terryโs Ace Hardware in Pagosa Springs tells me half as many snowblowers have been sold this winter despite new state rebates knocking 30% off the price of electric models.
Near Durango, snowplows normally used at a subdivision located at 8,000 feet remain unused. At Chapman Hill, the in-town ski area, all snow remains artificial, and itโs not enough to cover all the slopes. A little natural snow would help, but none is in the forecast.
Snow may yet arrive. Examining data collected on Wolf Creek Pass since 1936, the Pagosa Sunโs Josh Kurz found several winters that procrastinated until February. Even when snow arrived, though, the winter-end totals were far below average.
All this suggests another subpar runoff in the San Juan and Animas rivers. They contribute to Lake Powell, one of two big water bank accounts on the Colorado River. When I visited the reservoir in May 2022, water levels were dropping rapidly. The manager of Glen Canyon Dam pointed to a ledge below us that had been underwater since the mid-1960s. It had emerged only a few weeks before my visit.
That ledge at Powell was covered again after an above-average runoff in 2023. The reservoir has recovered to 35% of capacity.
A ledge that had been used in the construction of Glen Canyon Dam emerged in spring 2022 after about 50 years of being underwater. Photo May 2022/Allen Best
Will reservoir levels stay that high? Probably not, and that is a significant problem. Delegates who wrangled the Colorado River Compact in a lodge near Santa Fe in 1922 understood drought, at least somewhat. They did not contemplate the global warming now underway.
In apportioning the river flows, they also assumed an average 17.5 million acre-feet at Lee Ferry, the dividing line between the upper and lower basins. Itโs a few miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam and upstream from the Grand Canyon. Even during the 20th century the river was rarely that generous. This century it has become stingy, with average annual flows of 12.5 million acre-feet. Some worry that continued warming during coming decades may further cause declines to 9.5 million acre-feet.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
Colorado State Universityโs Brad Udall and other scientists contend half of declining flows should be understood as resulting from warming temperatures. A 2024 study predicts droughts with the severity that formerly occurred once in 1,000 years will by mid-century become 1-in-60 year events.
How will the seven basin states share this diminished river? Viewpoints differ so dramatically that delegates from the upper- and lower-basin states loathed sharing space during an annual meeting in Las Vegas as had been their custom. Legal saber-rattling abounds. A critical issue is an ambiguous clause in the compact about releases of water downstream to Arizona and hence Nevada and California.
Colorado transmountain diversions via the State Engineer’s office
Might Colorado need to curtail its diversions from the Colorado River? That would be painful. Roughly half the water for cities along the Front Range, where 88% of Coloradans live, comes from the Colorado River and its tributaries. Transmountain diversions augment agriculture water in the South Platte and Arkansas River valleys. The vast majority of those water rights were adjudicated after the compact of 1922 and hence would be vulnerable to curtailment. Many water districts on the Western Slope also have water rights junior to the compact.
In Grand Junction last September, Andy Mueller, the general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, the primary water policy agency for 15 of Western Slope counties, made the case that Colorado should plan for compact curtailments โ just in case. The district had earlier sent a letter to Jason Ullmann, the state water engineer, asking him to please get moving with compact curtailment rules.
Eric Kuhn, Muellerโs predecessor at the district, who is now semi-retired, made the case for compact curtailment planning in the Spring 2024 issue of Colorado Environmental Law Review. Kuhnโs piece runs 15,000 words, all of them necessary to sort through the tangled complexities. Central is the compact clause that specifies the upper basin states must not cause the flow at Lee Ferry, just below todayโs Glen Canyon Dam, to be depleted below an aggregate of 75 million acre-feet on a rolling 10-years basis.
That threshold has not yet been met โ yet. Kuhn describes a โrecipe for disasterโ if it is. He foresees those with agriculture rights on the Western Slope being called upon to surrender rights. He and Mueller argue for precautionary planning. That planning โcould be contentious,โ Kuhn concedes, but the โadvantages of being prepared for the consequences of a compact curtailment outweigh the concern.โ
Last October, after Muellerโs remarks in Grand Junction, I solicited statements from Colorado state government. The Polis administration said it would be premature to plan compact curtailment. The two largest single transmountain diverters of Colorado River Water, Denver Water and Northern Water, concurred.
Front Range cities, including Berthoud, above, are highly reliant upon water imported from the Colorado River and its tributaries. December 2023 photo/Allen Best
Recently, I talked with Jim Lochhead. For 25 years he represented Colorado and its water users in interstate Colorado River matters. He ran the stateโs Department of Natural Resources for four years in the 1990s and, ending in 2023, wrapped up 13 years as chief executive of Denver Water. Lochhead, who stressed that he spoke only for himself, similarly sees compact curtailment planning as premature.
โIt just doesnโt make sense to go through that political brain damage until we really have to,โ he said. โHopefully we wonโt have to, because (the upper and lower basins) will come up with a solution.โ
Lochhead does believe that a negotiated solution remains possible, despite the surly words of recent years…
โWe need to figure out ways to negotiate an essentially shared sacrifice for how weโre going to manage the system, so it can be sustainable into the future,โ he said. This, he says, will take cooperation that so far has been absent, at least in public, and it will also take money.
Instead, weโll have to slog along. The runoff in the Colorado River currently is predicted to be 81% of average. It fits with a theme. Unlike the children of Lake Wobegone, most runoffs in the 21st century have been below average.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Since the late 1980’s, this waterfall formed from interactions among Lake Powell reservoir levels and sedimentation that redirected the San Juan River over a 20-foot high sandstone ledge [Dominy Formation]. Until recently, little was known about its effect on two endangered fishes. Between 2015-2017, more than 1,000 razorback sucker and dozens of Colorado pikeminnow were detected downstream of the waterfall. Credit: Bureau of Reclamation
From email from Reclamation (Western Colorado Area Office):
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
A news release from the SWCD said the funding will support 17 projects aimed at supporting aquatic ecosystems during periods of drought across the Dolores and San Juan River Basins in Southwest Colorado. General Manager of SWCD, Steve Wolff, said the projects will address three broad categories: the removal of invasive plants, erosion control and habitat connectivity…One example Wolff provided was the rebuilding of headgates โ structures at the tops of stream diversions that regulate water flow โ to allow fish to move upstream and downstream during periods of drought. The projects were selected on their feasibility, readiness and level of local engagement, and had the support of 37 different federal, state, tribal and local entities representing regional and local stakeholders.
In 2023, the SWCD board of directors organized a partnership of over 30 regional groups in preparation for the B2E grant application after recognizing the need for rural stakeholders in Southwest Colorado to compete more effectively for federal funding. Southwest Colorado has always needed a lot of funding; it has numerous small conservation districts, irrigation districts and conservation groups that individually lack the capacity to prepare applications for large federal grants, Wolff said. The final grant contract isnโt expected to be executed until late 2025 or early 2026. All funding must be spent by Sept. 30, 2031.
This link should open in any smartphone, tablet, or computer browser, and does not require a Microsoft account. You will be able to view and hear the presentation as it is presented.
A copy of the presentation and meeting summary will be distributed to this email list and posted to our website following the meeting. If you are unable to connect to the video meeting, feel free to contact me (information below) following the meeting for any comments or questions.
The meeting agenda will include a review of operations and hydrology since August, current soil and snowpack conditions, a discussion of hydrologic forecasts and planned operations for remainder of this water year, updates on maintenance activities, drought operations, and the Recovery Program on the San Juan River. If you have any suggestions for the agenda or have questions about the meeting, please call Susan Behery at 970-385-6560, or email sbehery@usbr.gov. Visit the Navajo Dam website at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html for operational updates.
Click the link to read the article on the Pagosa Springs Sun website (Garrett Fevinger). Here’s an excerpt:
January 9, 2025
As of Jan. 8, the statewide snowpack pack stood at 95 percent of the 30-year median, according to data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) โ an improvement from weeks earlier when those levels tracked significant lower.
The San Miguel, Dolores, Animas, and San Juan basins measured to be at 84 percent of its 30-year median snowpack as Individual local levels were slightly lower, with the Upper San Juan area at 73 percent of its median snowpack, the Piedra area at 79 percent, and the Conejos area at 60 percent of its median. As of Jan. 8, 45 inches of snow were measured atop the Wolf Creek summit, which sits at 68 percent of its median snowpack, according to the NRCS.
River flows
The San Juan River was flowing at a rate of 42.9 cubic feet per second (cfs) through Pagosa Springs as of 9 a.m. Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Based on 89 years of water records, the median flow for the same date is 54 cfs, with a record high flow of 112 cfs in 1987. The lowest recorded flow for the date is 28 cfs in 1990.
After years of demanding the cleanup of uranium waste at the Kerr-McGee Quivira Mines on the Navajo Nation community advocates got the news this week that the Environmental Protection Agency will remove waste rock from three areas of the site and move it to a new off-site repository. The removal of over 1 million cubic yards of radioactive waste from the sites about 20 miles northeast of Gallup will begin in early 2025, the EPA said. The waste will be taken to a new off-site repository at Red Rocks Landfill east of Thoreau, N.M. The process, including permitting, construction, operation and closure of the repository, is expected to take 6-8 years.
โI feel as though our community finally has something of a win,โ said Teracita Keyanna, a member of the executive committee for Red Water Pond Road Community Association. โRemoving the mine waste from our community will protect our health and finally put us back on a positive track to Hรณzhวซ.โ
Commercial exploration, development, and mining of uranium at Quivira Mines began in the late 1960s by the Kerr-McGee Corporation and later its subsidiary. The mine sites are the former Church Rock 1 (CR-1) mining area; the former Church Rock 1 East (CR-1E) mining area; and the Kerr-McGee Ponds area. The mines were in operation from 1974 to the mid-1980s and had produced about 1.2 million tons of ore, making them among the 10 highest producing mines on the Navajo Nation…From World War II until 1971, the U.S. government was the sole purchaser of uranium ore, driving extensive mining operations primarily in the southwestern United States. These efforts employed many Native Americans and others in mines and mills. Between 1944 and 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands under leases with the Navajo Nation. With over 500 abandoned uranium mines โ many say the total could be in the thousands โ clean up of mines has always been a battle.
October snows above Ouray, Colorado. The Red Mountain Pass SNOTEL showed the snowpack to be 103% of normal as of Jan. 2, 2025. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Click the link to read the article on the Land Desk website (Jonatan P. Thompson):
January 3, 2025
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
Happy New Year! The Land Desk had a very mellow and relaxing couple of weeks off, and I must admit that Iโm struggling to get back into the old routine. And I sure as heck havenโt gotten used to writing โ2025โ yet. Oy.
But no matter what the calendar may say, weโre one-fourth of the way through the 2025 water year, and one-third of the way through meteorological winter.ย That means itโs time for a little snowpack update.
Snowpack levels in the watersheds that feed Lake Powell are just about normal for this time of year, thanks to some late-December storms across the region. But as you can see from 2023 (the purple line), thereโs plenty of time left for it to be a huge snow year โ or a downright crappy one if the precipitation suddenly stops. Source: NRCS.
This snow season got off to a rip-roaring start in much of the West, with some substantial high-country snowfall back in October and November. Then, as is often the case, someone turned off the big sky spigot, the clouds cleared, temperatures warmed, and the early season bounty became mid-winter middling to meager. Meanwhile, the high-mountain snow, while not necessarily melting, began โrotting.โ That is, it embarked on the metamorphosis from strong, well-bonded snow, to weak, faceted, depth hoar1.
Thatโs a problem, because when another layer of snow falls on top of it, the weak layer is prone to failure, resulting in an avalanche. Sadly, avalanches have taken the lives of four people so far this season, all during the last couple of weeks in December. Two of the fatalities occurred in Utah and one in Nevada, all following a late December storm atop a deep, weak layer. The other one was in Idaho on Dec. 15. Two of the victims were on motorized snowbikes, one was a solo split-boarder, and another was on foot or snowshoes. Last season there were 16 avalanche-related fatalities across the West, all occurring after the first of the year.
Southwestern Colorado got some good dumps in October and November, pushing the snowpack far above average and into the 90th percentile. But a dry December brought snowpack levels down below โnormalโ for the 1991-2020 period. Still, this yearโs levels almost mirror 2023โs, when snow season didnโt get going until January. Source: NRCS.
Meanwhile, further south, theย Sonoran Avalanche Centerย hasnโt had much action this season, at least not of the snowy kind. Most of the Southwest has been plagued by a dearth of snowfall โ and precipitation in general โ following a couple good storms in October and November. Temperatures have also been well above average in the southern lowlands. Phoenix set four daily high-temperature records in December, and the average for the month was a whopping seven degrees above normal; Flagstaff was also far warmer than normal and received nary a drop of rain or snow during all of December. And Las Vegas hasnโt received measurable rainfall since it got a bit damp (.08 inches) in mid-July.
The Salt River watershed in central Arizona has received hardly any snow so far this year and continues to lag far behind the 2023 and 2024 water years. The lack of moisture and unusually high temperatures in December donโt bode well for the regionโs runoff. Source: NRCS.
The Rio Grandeโs headwaters also started out strong, but have dropped below normal.
Things were looking pretty grim in western Wyomingโs Upper Green River watershed until December snows pushed the snowpack almost up to normal for this time of year. The entire state was quite dry last year and itโs looking like the drought will persist there.
This does not bode well for spring streamflows, particularly in the Salt and Gila Rivers. The mountains feeding the Rio Grande also are in need of some good storms to keep that river from going dry this summer.
We can take comfort in the fact that in many places in the West, snow-season doesnโt really arrive until February or March. So this could turn out to be a whopper of a winter yet.
The drought situation a year ago (left) and now (right). While drought has subsided in New Mexico and the Four Corners area, it has intensified dramatically in Wyoming, Montana, parts of Idaho and a swath that follows the lower Colorado River and includes Las Vegas, which has only received .08โ of precipitation since April of last year. Source: U.S. Drought Monitor.
For now it looks like thereโs no relief in sight for the Southwest or the Northern Rockies.
๐ต Public Lands ๐ฒ
Bidenโs getting busy as he prepares to vacate the White House. The Los Angeles Times reports that he plans to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument on 644,000 acres of federal land in southern California, and the Sรกttรญtla National Monument on 200,000 acres in the northern part of the state near the Oregon border. Thatโs what Iโm talkinโ about, Joe! Now do the lower Dolores!
๐ฆซ Wildlife Watch ๐ฆ
The soon-to-be Chuckwalla National Monument lies south of and adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, an area often targeted by utility-scale solar developers. Thatโs the sort of development that will now be banned there. Not only will cultural sites be protected, but also wildlife. A new study found that some of the Southwestโs best sites for solar overlap critical habitat for vulnerable species, including in most of southern California.
***
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking any information on the killing of a gray wolf in Grand County, Colorado, in summer of 2024. The wolf, 2309-OR, was part of the Copper Creek pack that was captured by wildlife officials in August, after members of the pack had made a meal out of local ranchersโ livestock. 2309-OR was in bad condition and perished in captivity; a subsequent investigation found that he died of a gunshot wound. Itโs illegal to kill wolves in Colorado, not to mention immoral and just a horrible thing to do. The Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation organizations are offering a $65,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter.
๐ธย Parting Shotย ๐๏ธ
San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona, in mid-November. They had a bit of snow from earlier storms, but havenโt received much since. The Snowslide Canyon SNOTEL site at 9,744 feet in elevation is recording 65% of normal snow water equivalent. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
1 Andy Gleason, snow nerd extraordinaire, explained it like this after record-high avalanche fatalities during the relatively scant 2021 snow year :
Drops wastewater rate increase from 30 percent to 10 percent
At a Dec. 20 special meeting, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors approved the districtโs 2025 budget…The 2025 budget includes $1,345,822 in revenues for the PAWSD general fund, primarily from property taxes, and $1,647,189 in expenditures, a 20 percent increase from 2024…The budget indicates that legal and professional spending, as well as spending on maintenance and computer support and upgrades, are anticipated to increase in 2025…
The general fund balance at the end of 2025 is projected to be $1,448,928, down 17 percent from the end of 2024…The PAWSD water enterprise fund is projected to receive $33,450,308 in revenues, including $5,609,336 in service charge revenue, $1 million in capital investment fee (CIF) and raw water acquisition fee revenue, and $25.2 million in loan proceeds, which will be used for the continued construction of the Snowball Water Treatment Plant expansion. Overall, revenues for the fund are projected to rise 5 percent from 2024. Expenditures for the fund are budgeted at $35,934,411, an 18 per-cent increase from 2024
The Gold King Mineโs level 7 adit and waste rock dump, boarding house, and other associated structures, circa 1906. Via the Land Desk
Click the link to read the article on the Land Desk website (Jonathan P. Thompson):
December 13, 2024
โ๏ธMining Monitor โ๏ธ
The News: After decades of trying, Congress finally passed a โgood samaritanโ mine remediation bill that could help nonprofits and other non-governmental organizations clean up abandoned mining sites.
The Context: In 1994, the state of Colorado, with the help of Bill Simon and other volunteers, launched the Animas River Stakeholders Group to study and address abandoned mines in the upper Animas River watershed. It would be a collaborative approach โ without heavy-handed regulations or the dreaded Superfund designation. โWe figured we could empower the people in the community to do the job without top-down management,โ Simon told me back in 2016. โGiving the power to the people develops stewardship for the resource, and thatโs particularly useful in this day and age.โ
Their task was a monumental one: The US Geological Survey has catalogued some 5,400 mine shafts, adits, tunnels, and prospects in the upper Animas watershed. Nearly 400 of them were found to have some impact on water quality, about 60 of which were major polluters, contributing about 90% of the mining-related heavy metal loading in streams. Dozens of abandoned mine adits collectively oozed more than 436,000 pounds of aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron, and zinc into the watershed each year, with waste rock and tailings piles contributing another 80,000 pounds annually.1
The upper Animas isnโt unusual in this respect. A 2020 Government Accountability Office report estimated that there are more than 500,000 abandoned mining-related sites and features across the Western United States. While most of those are hardly noticeable and have little effect on the environment, at least 100,000 of them were found to pose physical or environmental hazards.
Those hazards range from open mine shafts (that can swallow up an unsuspecting human or animal), to contaminated tailings or waste rock piles, to the big one: mine adits discharging heavy metal-laden acid mine drainage into streams. Federal and state programs exist to address some of these hazards. But the sheer number of problematic sites, and the fact that many are on private lands, makes it impossible for these agencies to remediate every abandoned mining site.
So, for the last few decades, nonprofits and collaborative working groups like the Animas River Stakeholders have taken up some of the slack. With funding from federal and state grants and mining companies, the Stakeholders removed and capped mine waste dumps, diverted runoff around dumps (and in some cases around mines), used passive water treatment methods on acidic streams, and revegetated mining-impacted areas.
This image was taken during the peak outflow from the Gold King Mine spill at 10:57 a.m. Aug. 5, 2015. The waste-rock dump can be seen eroding on the right. Federal investigators placed blame for the blowout squarely on engineering errors made by the Environmental Protection Agencyโs-contracted company in a 132-page report released Thursday [October 22, 2015]
But the most pernicious polluters โ the draining adits โ were off limits. The volunteer groups couldnโt touch them, because to do so would require a water discharge permit under the Clean Water Act, and that would make the Stakeholders liable for any water that continues to drain from the mine, and if anything went wrong. In other words, if some volunteers were trying to remediate the drainage from a mine, and it blew out Gold King-style, the volunteers would be responsible for the damage it inflicted โ which could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
For the last 25 years, the Animas River Stakeholders2, Trout Unlimited, other advocacy groups, and Western lawmakers have pushed for โgood samaritanโ legislation that would allow third parties to address draining mines without taking on all of the liability. Despite bipartisan support, however, the bills struggled and ultimately perished.
Thatโs in part due to concerns that bad actors might use the exemptions to shirk liability for mining a historic site. Or that industry-friendly EPA administrators might consider mining companies to be good samaritans. And back in 2015 Earthworks pointed out that good samaritan legislation wouldnโt address the big problem: A lack of funding to pay the estimated $50 billion cleanup bill. So if a volunteer group did trigger a Gold King-like disaster, the taxpayers would likely end up footing the bill.
But last year, Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, and 39 co-sponsors from both parties introduced the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act, tightened up to alleviate most concerns. It passed the Senate in July of this year, and was sent to the House, where it also received support from Republicans and Democrats alike.
Assuming President Biden signs it into law, the new act will open the door to more cleanups โ but in a limited way. To begin with, the bill only authorizes 15 pilot projects nationwide, which will be determined via an application process. The proponents will receive special good samaritan cleanup permits and must follow a rigorous set of criteria. No mining activities will be allowed to occur in concert with a good samaritan cleanup. However, reprocessing of historic waste rock or tailings may be allowed, but only in sites on federal land, and only if all of the proceeds are used to defray remediation costs or are added to a good samaritan fund established by the act.
Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, opposed the bill nonetheless, saying it compromises federal environmental law and โopens the floodgates for bad actors to take advantage of Superfund liability shields and loopholes.โ He added that it would give the incoming Trump administration โunilateral power to decide which entities are good samaritans and which are not.โ
This isnโt, however, a blanket loophole, it only applies to 15 projects โ at least for now. While that limits the damage that could be done by bad actors abusing the liability shields, it also limits the benefits: Fifteen projects isnโt going to go very far in addressing the 100,000 or so hazardous mine sites. The Animas River watershed may not benefit at all, since the 48 sites in the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site are not eligible for good samaritan remediation.
Still, the law will open the door for a handful of projects that could improve water quality in some watersheds. The challenge now is figuring out how to address draining mines in an economically feasible fashion. Simply plugging, or bulkheading, the mine adits often isnโt effective, because the contaminated water ends up coming out somewhere else. And treating the draining water is an expensive, and never-ending, process.
The good news is that some funding was made available via the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction laws passed during the last four years, and just this week the Biden administration gave mining cleanup a boost this week by offering states $3.7 million in grants to inventory, assess, and remediate abandoned hardrock mines.
The bad news is that the legislation thatโs really needed โ genuine and substantial mining law reform โ probably is on hold for at least the next four years.
Prior to mining, snowmelt and rain seep into natural cracks and fractures, eventually emerging as a freshwater spring (usually). Graphic credit: Jonathan Thompson
***
In other mining news, the Biden administration this week halted new mining claims and mineral leasing for the next two years on 165,000 acres in the upper Pecos River watershed west of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The โsegregation,โ as the action is called, is designed to allow the Interior Department to determine whether to ban mining and drilling in the area for the next 20 years.
Included within the acreage are more than 200 active mining claims held by Comexico LLC, a subsidiary of Australia-based New World Resources. For the past several years, Comexico has been working its way through the permitting process to do exploratory drilling at what it calls its Tererro mining project. It has met with stiff resistance from locals and regional advocacy groups, partly because mining has a dark history in the Pecos River watershed. In 1991, a big spring runoff washed contaminated mine and mill waste from a long-defunct mine into the upper Pecos River, killing as many as 100,000 trout. That prompted a multi-year cleanup of various mining sites.
But the withdrawal wonโt stop the project outright, because it doesnโt affect existing, active, valid claims. Yet it can keep the company from staking more claims and may make it harder to develop the existing ones (especially if they havenโt established validity).
What was a bit more of a surprise to me is how it broke down into categories.
๐ธ (Not Quite) Parting Shot ๐๏ธ
The old Buick at Cow Canyon Trading Post and Cafe in Bluff, Utah, my favorite place to stop and get caffeinated and breakfast burritoโd in Canyon Country. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
1 These figures did not include the recently closed Sunnyside Mine/American Tunnel or the Gold King, since both were permitted mines at the time, meaning they werenโt abandoned.
2 The ARSG disbanded after much of the watershed was designated a Superfund site.
Students from Palisade High School kissed good-bye to hatchery-raised juvenile razorback suckers before releasing them into the Colorado River May 2023. The fish are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, but populations have recovered enough that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed to downlist them to threatened. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Endangered fish recovery programs in Colorado and three other Western states were given renewed access to federal funds thanks to a bill passed Wednesday by Congress.
Lawmakers gave the go-ahead to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to spend tax dollars on the programs with just days left in a lame-duck session, which adjourns Friday. The news was welcomed in Colorado, where the programs help protect four threatened and endangered species in the Colorado River and San Juan River basins.
โLocal communities, Tribes, water users, and Congress โ weโre all in to protect our native fish and rivers,โ U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat who sponsored the Senate bill, said in a news release. โThese programs are tried and true. Our extension will help continue them to save our fish and make our rivers healthier.โ
Lawmakers voted to reauthorize the federal funding for seven years for two programs: the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program โ which operates in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming โ and the San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program โ which spans Colorado and New Mexico. The total funding amount is yet to be determined. The federal government allocated about $16.6 million, total, for the two programs between October 2023 and September 2024.
The recovery program bill was included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which sets national security policy and recommended spending levels for the Department of Defense. The act still awaited President Joe Bidenโs signature as of Wednesday.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican who currently represents the 3rd Congressional District in western Colorado, sponsored the bill in the House of Representatives to reauthorize funding for the programs.
Through the programs, a wide network of federal, local and state agencies work together to try to stabilize and rebuild the populations of certain endangered species, including the razorback suckers, Colorado pikeminnow and bonytail. A fourth species, the humpback chub, has recovered enough that it was downgraded to threatened from endangered.
The fish species have lost vital habitat along the Colorado River and its tributaries, in part because of human uses, like developing former wetland areas, damming rivers, or diverting the flow of water to farms and cities. Dry years, lower flows and higher temperatures have led to warmer water, offering prime habitat for nonnative predator fish, which eat and compete with the threatened and endangered species.
Farmers, reservoir operators, city water managers, and conservationists across Colorado coordinate their water management plans to try to improve conditions for the species.
These plans also help ensure that Colorado River water continues to flow through western Colorado โ instead of being used elsewhere โ supporting agriculture and communities along the way.
Even students are involved in the effort. Every year, Palisade High School students help the Upper Colorado River program raise razorback suckers until they are old and large enough to be released into the river upstream from Grand Junction. The school released its thousandth sucker in May.
Students from Palisade High School transfer baby razorback suckers from a tank into the Colorado River. The students raised the endangered fish in a hatchery as part of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Pat Steele, a science teacher at the high school who helped found the program, said it is awesome to see lawmakers from both parties work together.
โThatโs exactly what our lawmakers should be doing,โ he said. โWorking together and showing that example of bipartisanship, and showing our young people that this is how you get things done.โ
For program managers, the move offers greater clarity going forward.
There was never a question that the programs would fold, but Reclamation is a major source of funding, said Michelle Garrison, a water resources specialist for the Colorado Water Conservation Board, one of the top water agencies in Colorado, and a representative of Colorado water users in the recovery efforts.
Without the legislation, the flow of funding could have been disrupted, potentially requiring cutbacks or making it harder to hire seasonal staff and order equipment, she said.
โKnowing itโs good to go really helps the planning process,โ she said. It allows the network of partners to identify and prioritize what they need to focus on in coming years. โWhen youโre comfortable that youโre doing the best you can for the species, that gives you more certainty that youโre going to make sufficient progress.โ
Ron Rogers biologist with Bio-West Inc., holds a large razorback sucker captured in Lake Mead near the Colorado River inflow area
A Colorado pikeminnow taken from the Colorado River near Grand Junction, and in the arms of Danielle Tremblay, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife employee. Pikeminnows have been tracked swimming upstream for great distances to spawn in the 15-mile stretch of river between Palisade and Grand Junction. An apex predator in the Colorado, pikeminnows used to be found up to six feet long and weighing 100 pounds. Photo credit: Lori Martin, Colorado Parks and Wildlife via Aspen JournalismWild bonytail chub
As a young girl growing up on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, Lorelei Cloud learned the value of water in life lessons every week outside her uncleโs home.
โI lived with my grandparents in an old adobe home they had remodeled. We didn’t have any running water and so we always hauled water to our house,โ says Cloud, Vice Chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe in southwest Colorado.
โEvery Sunday, my uncle would come and pick up my sister and me. We would fill up our water jugs from the garden hose outside his house and take it back to our house. That was our water for the week.โ
On the occasions when her familyโs supply didnโt last, Cloudโs grandmother would collect water from a nearby ditch and boil it for safe use โ tiding them over until the next trip to her uncleโs.
Those early memories โ of water scarcity, not abundance โ have helped shape Cloudโs work today as a state leader in water conservation, and as a champion for Tribal voices in water decision-making in Colorado.
Native America in the Colorado River Basin. Credit: USBR
Native American Tribes hold some of the most senior water rights in the Colorado River Basin and have thousands of years of knowledge about water management.
But they have been historically excluded from decisions around allocations and management of the river and water resources. And on many Reservations, including the Southern Ute, access to clean, safe drinking water is still far from universal.
โWhen we pray, we always pray about water,โ Cloud says of her Tribeโs traditions. โWe pray itโs always going to be there to take care of our people.โ
Lorelei Cloud grew up without running water in her home. Every week, she and her sister would fill up water jugs from her uncle’s home for the family and haul them back to her family’s house. Photo Credit: Hans Hollenbeck
For Cloud, action follows prayer. In 2023, she was named to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, becoming its first Indigenous member. She also chairs the Indigenous Womenโs Leadership Network, which aims to create a bigger platform for Indigenous women working on water and natural resource issues.
And she has served as chair of the Ten Tribes Partnership, a coalition of Tribes in the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basin seeking a greater voice for Indigenous communities in management of the river.
โTraditionally, as a people, we value water. We know that water is sacred. We also know that water is alive. It has a spirit just like all living things have a spirit,โ Cloud says.
“As a people, we value water,” says Lorelei Cloud. “We know that water is sacred. We also know that water is alive. It has a spirit.” Photo Credit: Hans Hollenbeck
โWe’ve never taken more than what we could use. What we couldn’t use, we always gave back. That belief in respecting nature is always at the center of my thought process and my decision-making.โ
Bringing more voices to the table when making water management decisions leads to better solutions, Cloud says. Thatโs critically important in the Colorado River Basin, which provides water to 40 million people in seven states, even as climate change and drought are ushering in an uncertain water future.
In 2023, Lorelei Cloud became the first Indigenous person named to the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Photo Credit: Hans Hollenbeck
โBeing that first Indigenous person on the water conservation board, it really helped open my eyes on how other people make the decisions about water use within the state of Colorado,โ Cloud says.
โI have a greater understanding and respect for all of the water users in Colorado because they are very conscious about how water is being used and how water is being allocated.โ
In turn, Cloud says she hopes non-Tribal water users in Colorado are gaining a better understanding of the unique water challenges facing Indigenous people.
The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has its own water treatment facility. But dozens of families in more remote areas lack universal access to clean water. Water hauling services can cost hundreds of dollars.
โTribal residents have to make the decisions if they can flush their toilets, if they have the water to wash their dishes, if they can take showers, on a daily basis,โ she says. โOther people in the basin don’t have to make those decisions. They don’t consciously think about paying for the water before they use it.โ
Cloud understands the significance of her status as the first Indigenous member of Coloradoโs water board. Every meeting, every conversation she joins helps normalize Tribal involvement in water decision making.
โBridging those gaps, highlighting inequities that exist โ itโs all part of changing how the world views Tribes and Tribal water rights,โ she says. โHaving Tribes in all of those conversations is really, really important. We are the senior water right holders. We are the first inhabitants of this continent. We are the first conservationists.โ
She believes Indigenous women bring a particularly unique, important โ and overlooked โ perspective to discussions in the future of water in the Colorado River Basin.
โIndigenous women are naturally in leadership roles in conservation, because we tap into the generational knowledge and intuition and experience that can help solve complex environmental challenges,โ she says.
โWomen have always been the caretakers. When they go out and gather water for their home, they need to know how much water is available. They need to know the quality of the water thatโs available. So they understand the connection between water demand and water supply.โ
Cloud cites her grandmother โ Sunshine Cloud Smith โ as the most influential and inspiring person in her own life. Cloud calls her grandmother โa rebel for her timeโ who lied about her age to leave the reservation to go to school at 16. She also joined the Army and later became a member of the Southern Ute Tribal Council and led Head Start programs to benefit Tribal children.
Cloud remembers her grandmother taking her to a bridge crossing the Pine River, on the Reservation, for water ceremonies.
โMy grandmother was the glue in my family,โ she says. โShe would pray and make offerings to the spirit so that we would have rain for the season and have water. Since then, the Pine River has always been a place where I can go and pray and leave offerings for the spirits.โ
Today, Cloud sees it as her โpersonal dutyโ to help elevate Indigenous women to leadership roles on water issues.
โI’m not a gatekeeper in my knowledge. I always want to share my knowledge with other women.โ
The city of Durangoโs approach to stormwater management is largely reactionary: When storm drains become clogged, crews reshuffle their priorities to clean the drains. Infrastructure around the city is failing, and after heavy rains, debris is often swept across streets, parking lots and into riverways. The Public Works Department is in desperate need of dedicated staff to implement a proper preventive maintenance program, Bob Lowry, interim Public Works director, said. Besides two street sweeper operators in its streets division, Public Works lacks any staff dedicated to preventive maintenance to stormwater infrastructure, he said. And it lacks a dedicated funding source for managing its stormwater system. He said the system consists of nearly 55 miles of pipe and 2,392 storm drainage inlets in curbs and gutters, in addition to natural drainage channels.
Residents have expressed concerns about sediment unloading into the Animas River after heavy rain and snow melt, which threatens ecology and wildlife, and flood-prone zones and failing stormwater infrastructure around town imperiling private and public property.
Last week, Lowry pitched City Council the idea of establishing a stakeholder committee tasked with identifying a suitable long-term funding source. Councilors will consider a resolution establishing such a group at their next meeting in November. In a presentation with photos of problem areas around town, he highlighted pipes clogged by debris, flood zones and erosion…
A dedicated stormwater maintenance fund would facilitate a crew of four additional staff and a supervisor, street sweeping, inspecting pipes and infrastructure with camera feeds, and inlet and pipe cleaning operations, he said…And, he hopes such a committee and the Durango Financial Advisory Board would conclude stormwater management fees that would be charged through residentsโ and businessesโ utility accounts are the best funding option.
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe received $7.5 million for a new design of a pipeline that delivers drinking water to Towaoc. The funding for the design is the first step toward the pipelineโs replacement. The funding is focused on 18 miles of the 22-mile pipeline, which delivers water from the McPhee Reservoir before it is treated in Cortez and piped to Towaoc…This funding for the pipeline comes from an Inflation Reduction Act program. The funding is under IRA Section 50231, based on the Tribal Domestic Water Supply Program. Administered by the Bureau of Reclamation, the funding supports the planning and construction of domestic water infrastructure projects…
[Manuel] Heart said the soil was not tested before the part of the pipeline was originally installed, which has caused maintenance issues…Heart said the water leaks have cost between $80,000 and $300,000 to fix depending on where the water break is.
Aerial image of entrenched meanders of the San Juan River within Goosenecks State Park. Located in San Juan County, southeastern Utah (U.S.). Credits Constructed from county topographic map DRG mosaic for San Juan County from USDA/NRCS – National Cartography & Geospatial Center using Global Mapper 12.0 and Adobe Illustrator. Latitude 33ยฐ 31′ 49.52″ N., Longitude 111ยฐ 37′ 48.02″ W. USDA/FSA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
From email from Reclamation (Western Colorado Area Office):
Reclamation will be fulfilling a request to release the second block of the Jicarilla Apache Nation (JAN) subcontracted water that has been leased to the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (NMISC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for calendar year 2024.
The subcontracted water released from the Navajo Unit will augment the current release of 350 cfs as requested by the NMISC and TNC. The table below shows the release schedule. Any changes to this schedule will be sent out in subsequent notices. The total volume of JAN subcontracted water for this release is 10,000 acre-feet over our current release.
Following this operation, the release will return to 350 cfs, or whatever is required to maintain the target baseflow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Susan Behery (sbehery@usbr.gov or 970-385-6560), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Lake Nighthorse and Durango March 2016 photo via Greg Hobbs.
Click the link to read the article on The Durango Herald website (Maria Tedesco). Here’s an excerpt:
November 1, 2024
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe has tried to obtain compensation for water rights from the Inflation Reduction Act, but the Bureau of Reclamation has not acted. U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, as well as Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, wrote a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation on Oct. 22 urging the bureau to work with the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribes for alternative routes of funding, after they were not able to be compensated from the IRA.
โWe strongly encourage you to explore other avenues for Coloradoโs Tribal Nations to pursue funding related to drought response, recognizing that they are currently forgoing their water use not by choice, but resulting from a history of inequity reflected in their long-term lack of infrastructure,โ the letter said.
Combined, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and Southern Ute Tribe hold about 33,000 acre-feet of water rights in Lake Nighthorse. Lawmakers provided funds only for the construction of the A-LP and not a delivery system in 2000. Without a pipeline out of Lake Nighthorse, water flows downstream. Since the tribes are not compensated for the water to which they are entitled, but do not use, lawmakers asked the Bureau of Reclamation to explore alternative routes of funding…Aside from receiving compensation for water rights, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe also needs $500 million for a water delivery project for water from Lake Nighthorse, said Manuel Heart, chair of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
SAN JUAN RIVER The San Juan River at the hwy 64 bridge in Shiprock, NM. June 18, 2021. ยฉ Jason Houston
From email from Reclamation Western Colorado Area Office:
October 28, 2024
With cooler weather and forecast sufficient flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam from 450 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 350 cfs for Wednesday, October 30th, at 7:00 AM. Reclamation is still currently utilizing the 4×4 for the release point due to a maintenance project. This project will continue throughout October and November.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please reply to this message, call 970-385-6560, or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html.
The Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Indian tribes, which have reservation land in Colorado, have rights to water they currently canโt access in Lake Nighthorse Reservoir near Durango. Lake Nighthorse, near Durango, Colorado on May 26, 2023. Bureau of Reclamation officials have promised more tribal inclusion in the negotiation of the post-2026 reservoir operating guidelines. Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):
October 24, 2024
Colorado elected leaders this week rallied behind two tribal nations who are willing to forgo future water use in exchange for payment through a new federal conservation fund meant to address drought in the Colorado River Basin.
At issue is whether the tribesโ proposal is eligible for the funding under federal rules.
The Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes would like funding for a program that pays tribes to save water by not developing it for future use. Federal officials say the tribesโ proposal doesnโt fit the parameters of the new conservation fund. This week, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet called on the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to change its mind.
โWe write to urge you to ensure that the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe have the opportunity to apply for funding programs that address drought and water supply management in the Colorado River Basin, including through upcoming drought mitigation funding under the Inflation Reduction Act,โ the lawmakers wrote in a joint letter released Tuesday.
The funding in question, known as Bucket 2 Water Conservation or B2W for short, will focus on long-term projects that cut down on water use or demand for water. Water officials are already eyeing it while waiting to learn about application guidelines, like final eligibility rules.
Itโs a much-anticipated addition to billions of taxpayer dollars that are already pouring into the West from big COVID-era programs, like the Inflation Reduction Act. Millions of dollars are filtering down to communities in the Colorado River Basin to help conserve water, upgrade water infrastructure, address drought impacts and restore ecosystems.
Itโs the type of money that can make a water officialโs long-held dreams come true.
Funding a forbearance program โ a top priority for Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute officials โ would incentivize tribes not to use or develop all their water rights.
The idea could help reduce future demand in an already overburdened river system, supporters say. But it runs counter to ongoing water conservation efforts, which have primarily called on irrigators to cut back on their existing water use.
Paying tribes, who already arenโt using water, to continue to not use it does not fit funding requirements, according to Reclamation. Conservation projects need to offer measurable, new additions to the amount of water flowing through rivers and streams in the Colorado River Basin, Reclamation said.
Native America in the Colorado River Basin. Credit: USBR
โA matter of fairness and justiceโ
Incentivizing tribes not to fully develop their water rights could have a big impact in the Colorado River Basin. The 30 federally recognized tribes within the basin have recognized rights to a total of about 26% of the riverโs average flow.
But when programs, like the Bucket 2 conservation fund, require water to be used before it can be conserved, it poses a challenge for tribal nations across the Colorado River Basin.
About a dozen tribes are still trying to quantify their rights, a long legal process that must be completed before the water can be used. Others have quantified rights but lack the infrastructure to deliver water to homes, businesses and farms on tribal lands.
The Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Tribes fall into the latter camp: Both tribes have the need for water, plans to use their water, and quantified rights to water held in Lake Nighthorse, a federal reservoir outside of Durango.
Neither tribe has put that water to use, citing expensive fees and the high costs of building new water infrastructure.
Until September, tribal officials thought they would be eligible for Bucket 2 funding to launch a compensated tribal forbearance program.
During the Colorado River Districtโs annual seminar in Grand Junction on Sept. 20, Southern Ute Vice Chair Lorelei Cloud shared Reclamationโs determination, just days prior, that the proposed program was not eligible for the upcoming round of conservation funding.
โWe had something on the table until Wednesday when that changed,โ Cloud told the room of water professionals. โSorry, this is emotional to me, because we worked very hard so that we could get the compensation for our water.โ
When unused water passes reservations, downstream water users have the option to get paid with federal money to forgo using what is, essentially, tribal water, said Peter Ortego, general counsel for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. But the tribes are not always able to participate in those same programs.
โItโs a matter of fairness and justice,โ he said in a written statement.
Colorado officials weigh in
Reclamation officials say the upcoming round of conservation funding is limited by legal language in the Inflation Reduction Act that requires new, verifiable contributions to Colorado River system water. Tribal and nontribal projects that meet this standard are eligible, the agency said in a prepared statement Wednesday.
Hickenlooper, Bennet and Polis urged Reclamation to ensure the tribes could apply for the next round of funding.
The lawmakers stressed that, although Reclamation believes the forbearance program would not qualify, the lack of opportunity to develop water supplies does not equal a lack of demand, the letter said. They also urged Reclamation to consider other funding avenues for the tribes.
Colorado River Commissioner Becky Mitchell, Coloradoโs top negotiator on river matters, also weighed in to support the tribesโ efforts.
โI continue to urge Reclamation to address this historic inequity and to identify a funding source for Tribal forbearance projects,โ she said in a written statement.
If funding through the upcoming Bucket 2 Water Conservation Program isnโt an option, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe asked the Department of Interior, which houses the Bureau of Reclamation, to provide funding for a separate, standalone program.
โTo rectify historical wrongs, the Tribe must be adequately compensated for its unused water, especially knowing that junior water users and the Colorado River system are being propped up by our unused water,โ the tribeโs statement said.
The outflow at the bottom of Navajo Dam in New Mexico. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
From email from Reclamation’s Western Colorado Area Office:
With forecast sufficient flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam from 550 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 450 cfs for Tuesday, October 22nd, at 7:00 AM. Reclamation is still currently utilizing the 4×4 for the release point due to a maintenance project. This project will continue throughout October and November.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
Click the link to read the article on the Pagosa Springs Sun website (Danyelle Leentjes). Here’s an excerpt:
September 30, 2024
The Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership (WEP) is inviting the public to attend a presen- tation and Q-and-A of the 60 percent designs of the Pagosa Gateway River Project on Oct. 10 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Ross Aragon Community Center.
The public can also view and make comments on the designs on mypa- gosa.org.
The Pagosa Gateway Project is a vital restoration endeavor targeting approximately 2 miles of the San Juan River upstream of the Town of Pagosa Springs. A recent environmental and rec- reational water supply needs assess- ment, commissioned by the WEP, identified potentially significant changes in hydrology and limiting conditions for aquatic life in this sec- tion of the San Juan River. Assessment results suggest late summer and fall flows may restrict the availability and quality of aquatic habitat for fish and other aquatic species, as well as the number of days in a year when recreational craft can successfully navigate this segment of the San Juan mainstem.
On Sept. 19, the Pagosa Springs Town Council adopted new rates for the geothermal water that the town sends to The Springs Resort. The new rates are based on what the council deemed as the โfair mar- ketโ values of the heat and mineral content of the water. The council decided that a fair market rate for the heat/energy of the water should reflect the same per- centage of rate increases that general customers have experienced. Geothermal utility customers saw a 100 percent rate increase in the 2022-2023 heating season and a 50 percent increase for the 2024-2025 season. The councilโs calculations deem that if The Springs Resort also paid these rate increases for the geother- mal energy, its rate would be $2,084 per month or $25,007 annually, and this rate would be the fair market value for the heat/energy component of the water. On the mineral component, the council decided that the fair mar- ket value would be determined by the daily entry fee that The Springs charges its nonresident visitors. Currently, the resort charges out-of-town purchase the water at these new rates…
The council ultimately decided on $1,675 per month, or $20,100 annually, for the usage of the waterโs mineral component, which was calculated by multiplying The Springsโ daily nonresident price of $67 by the number of its soaking pools (25).
From email from Reclamation (Western Colorado Area Office):
With forecast sufficient flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam from 700 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 600 cfs for Friday, September 27th, at 4:00 AM.
Next week, on October 1st at 7:30 AM, Reclamation will begin a maintenance project that will necessitate a switch to the 4×4 for the release point. The release may fluctuate slightly during the switch, and the water downstream of the dam may be silty for a day or two following this release point change. The maintenance project will continue throughout October and November.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please reply to this message, call 970-385-6560, or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html.
The San Juan Water Conservancy District (SJWCD), with a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, has released the first of three short educational films regarding the watershed and the future of the water supply in Archuleta County. The video, โThe Value of Snow,โ will be shown in multiple venues in the county and can also be viewed online via the SJWCD website: sjwcd. org. The SJWCD is organized and funded by the citizens of Archuleta County to be an active leader in all issues affecting the water resources of the Upper San Juan River Basin. In order to enhance the understanding of our limited water resources, the district employed professional filmmaker Christi Bode to produce these films.
All water uses โ environmental, agricultural, recreational, industrial and municipal โ are important and need to be understood. It is the goal of the SJWCD to use these tools to help our constituents gain knowledge and understanding of the benefits and the risks associated with our watershed and the water it provides. Our communityโs economy and our residentsโ well-being are directly dependent on the health of our watershed. The risks are many and include drought, wildfires, mass earth movements (landslides), pollution and diversions.
Click the link to read the article on The Durango Herald website (Christian Burney). Here’s an excerpt:
September 14, 2024
About 20 people attended the event. They heard the panelists discuss Florida and Animas river trends, how Southwest Coloradoโs climate is changing over time and fast facts about where Durangoโs water comes from. Pool said Durangoโs water comes predominantly from the Florida River and is supplemented by the Animas River. The city uses about 1.5 billion gallons of water per year for all utility use types, he said…He said both the Florida and Animas rivers are trending downward in total water volume; in dry years, groundwater recedes, which affects the total amount of surface water available. But Durangoโs water consumption has remained flat despite a growing population, he said.
โPer capita, water use is going down. Total water use is staying pretty flat, with some seasonal fluctuations due to irrigation,โ [Marty Pool] said.
While the city uses all the water from the Florida River it has legal rights to every year, itโs not even approaching the maximum usage of water from the Animas River, he said…Durango is lucky in that not all communities have that many second or third water options, he said.
On September 3, 2024 the board of the Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improve- ment District (PSSGID) voted to move $500,000 from town funds to kick-start critical repairs on its sewer system, pushing off a bigger decision on financing for a larger overhaul of the system. Public Works Director Karl Johnson said that he fears a โcatastrophic eventโ could be in the cards if the district doesnโt do something now to shore up the system.
Town Manager David Harris added, โWe need to get moving here … and we need to move sooner rather than later.โ
Johnson explained to the board that the biggest project on the districtโs radar would be to continue repairing what has been deemed category 4 and 5 problems with sewer pipes, as well as its obligation to upgrade the Vista Treatment Plant, owned and operated by the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD), to bring it into compliance with state Regulation 85.
The San Juan River at the hwy 64 bridge in Shiprock, NM. June 18, 2021. ยฉ Jason Houston
From email from Reclamation (Susan Novak Behery):
Due to falling flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam from 600 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 800 cfs for Tuesday, September 10th, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Susan Behery (sbehery@usbr.gov or 970-385-6560), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors discussed funding mechanisms for the districtโs regulatorily required upgrades to the Vista wastewater treatment plant at its Aug. 29 meeting. Following a discussion, the board directed staff to move forward with seeking funding through a revenue bond publicly issued by the district to finance upgrades to the Vista plant required by Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CD- PHE) Water Quality Control Com- mission Regulation 85, in addition to other collection system improve- ments mandated by the CDPHE. Regulation 85 requires that certain wastewater treatment plants in the state reduce the amount of nutrients, such as nitrogen or phosphorus, con- tained in the outflows of treated water from the plants.
On Aug. 22, the Pagosa Springs Town Council approved a resolution authorizing the town to apply for grant funding from the Great Out- doors Colorado (GOCO) Community Impact Grant Program and the fed- eral Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). If awarded, the grant funding would go toward the purchase of 3.63 acres of property adjacent to the San Juan River near the junction of U.S. 160 and U.S. 84.
An agenda brief on the matter states that the funding would support the first phase of the East Gateway River Park Project, which would include purchasing the land, an environmental assessment, site improvement design, cleanup, boat ramp installation and parking im- provements. An executive summary plan, drafted by the town, states, โFuture project phases will include con- structing additional amenities such as restrooms, a handicap-accessible fishing pier, shade structures, paved parking, and a riverwalk trailhead.โ
High and increasing costs are barriers to establishing operations for new or young farmers and ranchers. As a result, there are fewer agricultural producers nationwide, and the average age of those producers is rising. The problem is worse in Colorado, where land especially has become extraordinarily expensive, and water access incredibly valuable. But data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows growth in Southwest Colorado, especially La Plata County. Farms and ranches are opening and expanding, and the average age of local agricultural producers is dropping…
Education is huge nonfinancial barrier for new agricultural producers. Without knowledge of agricultural science and market conditions, becoming a farmer or rancher turns from fiscally difficult to nearly impossible. The former site of Fort Lewis College, the Old Fort, hosts hands-on agricultural education, including Farmers in Training, Farm Incubator and Ranching Apprenticeship programs. The Old Fort also offers programs for high school students. Around 2008, Beth LaShell, director of the Old Fort, noticed an influx of new farmers and ranchers in the county. Most of those operations disappeared after a few years of trial and error because of high costs and lack of experience…So the Incubator Program was born. It is designed to share the Old Fortโs land, water, infrastructure and training with prospective farmers and ranchers. It gives new farmers the opportunity to gain experience in the industry and take classes without taking on serious debt in an uncertain endeavor.
The outflow at the bottom of Navajo Dam in New Mexico. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
From email from Reclamation (Susan Novak Behery):
Due to sufficient flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam from 700 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 600 cfs for Friday, August 23rd, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Susan Behery (sbehery@usbr.gov or 970-385-6560), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
The Central Arizona Project canal passes alfalfa fields and feedlots in La Paz County, Arizona. The fields are irrigated with pumped groundwater, not CAP water. Source: Google Earth.
Imagine that youโve set off for a hike in the desert of western Arizona, hoping to get up high so you can get a view of the juxtaposition of alfalfa fields against the sere, rocky earth. But you somehow get disoriented, the sun reaches its apex and beats down on you, the temperature climbing into the triple digits. The ground temperature becomes so hot you can feel it through the soles of your Hoka running shoes. Your water bottle is empty. Feeling certain you are going to die you pick a direction and stagger in as straight a line as you can manage, rasping for help. And then, just when youโre about to curl up under a rock and surrender, you see, coming straight out of a hillside, a virtual river. It must be a mirage, you think, or a hallucination, you run toward it, climb the fence, and dive into the cool, deep water.
This is not a fantasy scenario. There is, in fact, a place in the western Arizona desert where a lost traveler could stumble upon a giant canal emerging from the earth.
The Central Arizona Projectโs Mark Wilmer pumping plant at Lake Havasu. The 14 plants on the CAP system push water across more than 300 miles with a vertical gain of 3,000 feet. Moving water requires enormous amounts of power, making the CAP the stateโs largest single electricity user, with annual power bills totaling $60 million to $80 million. Source: Google Earth.
Central Arizona Project canal daylighting at the Buckskin Mountain Tunnel. Source: Google Earth
The outlet of the San Juan Chama Project runs into Willow Creek west of Los Ojos before running into Heron Lake. Source: Google Earth
The Rio Blanco intake for the San Juan-Chama Project, which takes water from three upper San Juan River tributaries and ships it across the Continental Divide to the Chama River watershed and, ultimately, the Rio Grande. Source: Google Earth
Itโs just one of theย crazy plumbing projects along the Colorado Riverย and its tributaries. And they can look pretty weird when you stumble upon them in remote places. Thatโs what happened to me the other day โ virtually. I was using Google Earth to chart the 1776 Escalante-Dominguez expeditionโs path when, near Chama, I came across a large volume of water emanating from an arid meadow. After some thought I realized it was the outlet for the San Juan-Chama Project that diverts about 90,000 acre-feet of water annually from three tributaries of the San Juan River, sends it through the Continental Divide via a tunnel, and delivers it to Willow Creek and Heron Reservoir. From there it can be released into the Chama River, which runs into the Rio Grande, which is used by Albuquerque and Santa Fe to supplement groundwater and the shrinking Rio Grande.
The Big Thompson Project sucks water out of the Colorado River near its headwaters and siphons it through the mountains via the Alva Adams Tunnel. The water feeds reservoirs that feed Front Range cities and is used to generate hydropower. Adams tunnel inlet at Grand Lake. Source: Google Earth
The Big Thompson Project sucks water out of the Colorado River near its headwaters and siphons it through the mountains via the Alva Adams Tunnel. The water feeds reservoirs that feed Front Range cities and is used to generate hydropower. Penstocks and powerplant at Flatiron reservoir on the right. Source: Google Earth
These things arenโt only unsettling in a visual way, but in a conceptual way as well. One would expect cities and agricultural zones to rise up around where the water is and to grow according to how much water is locally available. Instead, cities rise up in places of limited water and grow as if there were no limits, importing water (and power and other resources) from far away.ย
The Julian Hinds pumping station, near Desert Center, California, lifts water from the Colorado River Aqueduct 441 feet as it makes its way toward Los Angeles. Source: Google Earth
The Southern Nevada Water Authority was forced to build a third water intake from Lake Mead that was able to draw water as the reservoir continued to shrink. The pumping plant is pictured. Source: Google Earth
Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):
I’ve been
a) Playing with Datawrapper as a tool for displaying data here on Inkstain, and
b) Thinking about Albuquerque’s aquifer as bad summer river flows force us back onto groundwater
(City #2, in the North Valley, is one of a quartet of groundwater monitoring wells drilled in the late ’50s as Albuquerque’s population and groundwater pumping began to grow. I use it for big picture attention because it’s reasonably well placed to give a good rough picture of what’s going on, and has a nice long time horizon.)
update:
City Well #2
USGS Groundwater Monitoring Well 350824106375301, better known as Albuquerqueโs โCity Well #2โ
Map: John Fleck, Utton Center, University of New Mexico School of LawSource: USGSCreated with Datawrapper
It was nine years ago yesterday, while I was sitting in our Durango home, when a tweet from La Plata County popped up on my screen warning residents of an upstream spill of some sort. โI gotta see this,โ I said to myself, running out to the old Silver Bullet and driving it to the 32nd Street Bridge. When I found the water to be its usual placid green, brimming with SUPers and boaters and scantily-clad tubers, I continued north into the broad, flat-bottomed Animas Valley, where the generous monsoon had left pastures green and cottonwoods lush.
I turned onto Trimble Lane, passed the golf course and rows of McMansions to a little turnout by the bridge and was transfixed by the river: Turbid, electric-orange water, utterly opaque, sprawled out between the sandy banks, as iron hydroxide particles thickened within the current like psychedelic smoke.
This image was taken during the peak outflow from the Gold King Mine spill at 10:57 a.m. Aug. 5, 2015. The waste-rock dump can be seen eroding on the right. Federal investigators placed blame for the blowout squarely on engineering errors made by the Environmental Protection Agencyโs-contracted company in a 132-page report released Thursday [October 22, 2015]
The crazy color was the result, of course, of the Gold King Mine spill, when contractors for the EPA inadvertently breached an earthen plug in the portal of the Gold King Mine, releasing some 3 million gallons of TANG-hued, acidic, metal-tainted water into a tributary of the Animas River, turning the waterways various shades of yellow and orange for a good 100 miles downstream. The incident drew global attention, shut down the river, and affected recreation, commerce, and agriculture, as well as inflicting trauma on the collective psyches of the riverside communities โ some of which still lingers today.
It really seemed, at the time, to be a turning point. After years of lurking under the public radar, abandoned mines and the ways they harm the environment, impair water quality, and sometimes harm human health were finally getting attention. There were congressional hearings on the problem, dozens of stories in the national media, and Gold King downstreamers demanded that the Upper Animas River watershed be declared a Superfund site in order to fix the problem, once and for all.
The โBonita Peak Mining Districtโ superfund site. Map via the Environmental Protection Agency
Nine years have passed, a Superfund site โ the Bonita Peak Mining District โ was established, numerous lawsuits have played out, and as much as $160 million has been spent responding to the initial disaster and on Superfund-related activities in the years since. And yet, no meaningful federal policy regarding abandoned mines has been passed by Congress or implemented by the White House. And while Gold King Mine discharges are being treated, keeping some harmful metals out of the streams, very little additional progress has been made on solving the larger problem of abandoned mines in the Upper Animas watershed and their effect on water quality.
It is all a bit discouraging, to say the least. Though none of it is all that surprising.
On the federal policy part, the Biden administration issued a report last summer calling for major reforms to the 1872 General Mining Law. The proposed changes would increase protections on mining claim/lease and permitting end, so as to avoid future Gold King events. And they would establish a reclamation fee and royalties on federal hardrock minerals to help fund a restoration industry tasked with cleaning up abandoned mines.
It all sounds great, but so far has yielded very little actual policy. Yes, the Biden administration increased mining claim fees from $165 to $200. And the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act did earmark billions of dollars for abandoned mine โ and oil and gas well โ cleanup. As for Congress, the closest theyโve gotten to a viable mining law reform bill is one clearing the way for corporations to use public lands as waste dumps.
The problem is that the mining industry wields a great deal of power, especially in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. And that means that even Democratic, otherwise green-leaning politicians tend to bow down to industry (see Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both of Nevada). The Biden administration, meanwhile, has developed a case of carbon tunnel vision, and is looking to streamline and encourage mining for so called โgreen metalsโ such as lithium, manganese, cobalt, and copper. And it has also signed on to efforts to bolster the domestic uranium mining industry to support a growing advanced nuclear reactor sector. Implementing the administration’s own recommended reforms could slow those efforts.
Prior to mining, snowmelt and rain seep into natural cracks and fractures, eventually emerging as a freshwater spring (usually). Graphic credit: Jonathan Thompson
As for a lack of progress in the Upper Animas? Thatโs a more complicated situation. In fact, itโs the complicated nature that makes it so challenging.
Superfund โ or CERCLA โ seems to work well as a blunt instrument for cleaning up old factories, waste dumps, or other contained industrial sites, and for holding the responsible parties to account. It has a good track record on some mining sites, as well, including several in the West. Even then, however, the cleanup can last for decades, and in the case of draining mines, may require water treatment in perpetuity.
But thereโs nothing straightforward or simple about the environmental legacy of mining in the Upper Animas watershed and the 48 sites within the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site. The mountainsโ innards resemble Swiss cheese, with miles and miles of drifts and shafts in addition to natural fractures and faults that blur hydrological understanding. Indeed, mysteries remain around the exact source and pathways of the water that blew out of the Gold King in 2015. (For what is likely the most exhaustive, and exhausting, chronological dive into the Gold King/Sunnyside/American Tunnel connections, check out this old Land Desk wonkfest. But remember, only paid subscribers have access to the archives!)
Further complicating issues is a fair amount of natural acidity and metal loading that can never be cleaned up, along with the still unanswered question of which stretches of stream may have been able to support fish before mining commenced, and which ones may feasibly be able to support fisheries in the future. In other words, what is the end goal of the project? What would โfixingโ the problem, as downstreamers demanded in 2015, look like in terms of specific water quality improvements in specific stretches of streams? And are those desired fixes feasible? Nine years later and those questions linger.
The saddest part of it all, perhaps, is the fact that those questions were being asked and answered, and solutions were being implemented, prior to the Gold King spill. The Animas River Stakeholders Group moved maddeningly slow at times, but they were thorough, realistic in what could be achieved, and effective. They were also efficient: Since their funding was limited, they had to prioritize projects that would give them the biggest water quality bang for their buck. They were also somewhat limited in what they could do thanks to liability issues. While moving or capping a waste pile is fairly low risk, if a โgood samaritanโ like ARSG tries to fix a draining, abandoned mine, it could become responsible for future problems โ like the Gold King blowout, for example. So, ARSG relied on industry partners for draining adits, or called in the EPA.
A lot of folks, myself included, hoped that the Superfund cleanup would incorporate ARSG as an active partner and build upon their efforts. Just imagine what the group, which was formed in 1994 and included a vast storehouse of water quality data and analysis and human expertise, could have done with EPA funding and liability protection? Instead, the EPA started virtually from scratch. The ARSG ultimately disbanded and was replaced by the citizens advisory group, or CAG. Former ARSG Coordinator Peter Butler was brought on as CAGโs chair.
Iโd run into Butler on occasion while running or hiking the trails around Durango, and he always seemed a bit frustrated about the lack of progress at the Superfund site and the EPAโs lack of receptiveness to the advisory groupโs advice and data collection.
Shortly after the Gold King spill, the EPA had spent many millions of dollars setting up a water treatment facility in the former mining town of Gladstone, at the mouth of the bulkheaded and defunct American Tunnel (which accessed the Sunnyside, the last operating mine in the region, which was shuttered in 1991). But it only treats drainage from the Gold King, letting acid mine drainage from other nearby adits flow unmitigated into Cement Creek, which ultimately joins up with the Animas River. Other than that, the EPA had done very little in the way of substantive remediation, and downstream water quality has remained poorer than it was in the early 2000s, when the Sunnysideโs treatment plant was still up and running. (Itโs a very long story, but to sum it up: Legal issues, a lack of funding, and an eviction shut treatment down in 2004, causing water quality and downstream fish populations to deteriorate).
Still, I was a bit shocked when Butler announced his resignation from the CAG late last year, and sent a letter detailing his reasons for moving on. He cited the lack of CAG influence on decision-making, the high turnover among local EPA administrators, and the EPAโs failure to honor promises made to the local community prior to Superfund designation. And, he wrote:ย
(The EPA later responded, as reported by the Durango Heraldโs Reuben M. Schafir)
It was damning criticism and the EPA lost an important advisor when Butler stepped down. And while the CAG continues its work with a capable group of local advisors, Butlerโs exit also seemed to signal the end of the Animas River Stakeholders Group era, in which environmentalists, bureaucrats, scientists, and industry collaborated to find working solutions to complex problems.
It has taken me a while to write about this, in part because I do find it somewhat heartbreaking. It also worries me. Earlier this year Navajo Nation advocates and residents celebrated when the EPA finally designated the Lukachukai Mountains Mining District Superfund site after years of lobbying for it. They saw it as a guarantee that dozens of abandoned, Cold War-era uranium mines would finally be cleaned up and would stop oozing toxic material into the water and homes. And maybe it is, but how long will it take?
The sad reality is that no one โ not the EPA, not the Stakeholders group, not industry โ will ever totally fix the problem of polluting abandoned mines in the Upper Animas watershed. All they can really do is manage it and, in an ideal world, learn from the experience and develop better and more innovative ways to carry out that management. I suppose in EPA-time, nine years isnโt all that long. Thereโs still time to right the ship so that the project can benefit the water and the local community.
Last weekโs $90 millionย settlementย relating to the 2015 Gold King Mine Blowoutย that turned the Animas and San Juan Rivers TANG-orange for over 100 miles downstream did not bring an end to the legal saga that has dragged on for more than six years (lawsuits against the federal government are still pending). But when the agreement is finalized, Sunnyside Gold Corpโthe owner of the nearby, now-shuttered Sunnyside Mineโwill finally be free of the mess. Extricating themselves from any further liabilities has cost them about $67.6 million: $40.5 million to the feds;ย $6.1 millionย to the State of Colorado;ย $11 millionย to the State of New Mexico; and $10 million to the Navajo Nation, not to mention the tens of millions theyโd already spent cleaning up a centuryโs worth of mining mess.
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
Glen Canyon Dam. Photo credit: Jonathan P. Thompson/The Land Desk
Iโve seen a bunch of headlines lately to the effect of: โLake Powell water hits highest level in three years.โ Itโs accurate and itโs certainly good news for everyone who relies on water from the Colorado River, but it doesnโt really tell the whole story. Yes, deadpool has been delayed for another year or so, boaters have better access to the reservoir, hydropower output should be a bit better, and the ferry between Halls Crossing and Bullfrog Marinas is operating once again.
That said, the headline is a bit of a glass half-full sort of thing. Yet in this case, it wasnโt even half full, at its seasonal peak in early July it was only about 41% of capacity โ or 59% empty for all the pessimists. Now water levels are dropping again and likely will continue to do so until next spring, as releases exceed inflows.
In some ways you could say that Lake Powellโs levels are a microcosm of the Southwestโs climate as a whole. Weโve had a few decent to downright-abundant water years, which have eased the drought in most places and helped reservoir levels recover. But the wet years have not ended the Southwest megadrought, now going on its 25th year, which is the most severe dry spell of the last 1,200 years, according to new research out of UCLA. Nor has the above-average snowpack brought Lakes Powell or Mead back to their 1980s glory days. It will take several more consecutive wet years to make that happen.
The increase may not be enough to quell concerns about future water supplies, but the ferryโs up and running again, which is a good sign. I’ve only taken it once: My dad and brother and I took the Lowrider, a 1967 Pontiac Catalina, across Lake Powell many years ago, before taking some hairball, oil-pan-busting Henry Mountain route for which the car was not appropriate. The ferry ride only lasts a few minutes, but itโs kind of cool, and it allows you to see a lot more country with less driving. It only runs when the water level is above 3,575 feet, though, which means you probably only have a month or two to try it out.
Figure 4. Graph showing the distribution of reservoir storage in different parts of the Colorado River basin between 1 January 2021 and 15 July 2024. Credit: Jack Schmidt/Center for Colorado River Studies
The orange plume flows through the Animas across the Colorado/New Mexico state line the afternoon of Aug. 7, 2015. (Photo by Melissa May, San Juan Soil and Conservation District)
As the CEO of Northern New Mexico Indigenous Farmers, I see firsthand the struggles our farmers face every day. Our community, inherently connected to our land and rich in agricultural traditions, has been hit hard by an unreliable water system that makes it tough to keep our crops healthy and our livelihoods secure. The Hogback pump station, which should be a dependable source of water, often breaks down, causing us to lose crops and hope. Today, I want to share why securing Energy Transition Act funding for a new pump station is so crucial and how this project will bring much-needed hope to our community.
This image was taken during the peak outflow from the Gold King Mine spill at 10:57 a.m. Aug. 5, 2015. The waste-rock dump can be seen eroding on the right. Federal investigators placed blame for the blowout squarely on engineering errors made by the Environmental Protection Agencyโs-contracted company in a 132-page report released Thursday [October 22, 2015]
Our organization was born out of the Gold King Mine spill, a disaster that laid bare the lack of support for our farmers. The spill made our existing problems worse, showing that without quick action, our farming future was at risk. One of the biggest issues we face is our broken-down irrigation system, specifically the Hogback pump station. Its frequent failures leave us with no reliable water supply for our crops, creating a constant state of anxiety for our farmers and resulting in fallow land. This situation canโt go on if we want our community to thrive. Thatโs why we applied for the ETA grant from New Mexicoโs Economic Development Department, and Iโm thrilled to announce we were awarded $3.6 million in funding to replace our failing pump station. This isnโt just a fix for our water problems; itโs a lifeline for our entire community. The new pump station, complete with its own solar power, will make sure our farms get a steady and reliable supply of water, leading to healthier crops and more stable incomes for our farmers. But the benefits of this project go beyond water. A reliable pump station will help us rebuild our agricultural sector, providing jobs and boosting local businesses that rely on farming. It will also help us keep our cultural traditions alive, as farming is more than just work for us โ itโs a way of life that connects us to our heritage and our land. This project will also bring our community together. Alongside the new pump station, we plan to offer training for our farmers on modern irrigation techniques and sustainable land management. This training will give our farmers the tools they need to use water more efficiently and improve their yields. By learning and growing together, our community will become stronger and more united.
Reclamation will be fulfilling a request to release the first block of the Jicarilla Apache Nation (JAN) subcontracted water that has been leased to the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (NMISC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for calendar year 2024.
The subcontracted water released from the Navajo Unit will augment the current release of 700 cfs by 250 cfs (for a total of 10 days) and 500 cfs (for a total of 5 days) as requested by the NMISC and TNC. The table below shows the release schedule. Any changes to this schedule will be sent out in subsequent notices. The total volume of JAN subcontracted water for this release is 10,000 acre-feet. An additional 10,000 acre-feet will be released later this calendar year with the same augmentation pattern.
Date
Day
4:00 AM Release (cfs)
7/31/2024
Wed
950
8/1/2024
Thu
950
8/2/2024
Fri
950
8/3/2024
Sat
950
8/4/2024
Sun
950
8/5/2024
Mon
1200
8/6/2024
Tue
1200
8/7/2024
Wed
1200
8/8/2024
Thu
1200
8/9/2024
Fri
1200
8/10/2024
Sat
950
8/11/2024
Sun
950
8/12/2024
Mon
950
8/13/2024
Tue
950
8/14/2024
Wed
950
Following this operation, the release will return to 700 cfs, or whatever is required to maintain the target baseflow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell).ย The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area.ย The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
“New plot using the nClimGrid data, which is a better source than PRISM for long-term trends. Of course, the combined reservoir contents increase from last year, but the increase is less than 2011 and looks puny compared to the โholeโ in the reservoirs. The blue Loess lines subtly change. Last year those lines ended pointing downwards. This year they end flat-ish. 2023 temps were still above the 20th century average, although close. Another interesting aspect is that the 20C Mean and 21C Mean lines on the individual plots really donโt change much. Finally, the 2023 Natural Flows are almost exactly equal to 2019. (17.678 maf vs 17.672 maf). For all the hoopla about how this was record-setting year, the fact is that this year was significantly less than 2011 (20.159 maf) and no different than 2019” — Brad Udall
In 2022, Lake Powell was at its lowest since it was originally filled in the 1960s. [Amy] Haas noted an ongoing concern that there is currently no mechanism to ensure the conserved water from the upper basin states is flowing down to Lake Powell and staying there.
The relationship between the upper and lower basin states is not always pleasant, but [Gene] Shawcroft noted that recently, agreements and understandings have been made between the entities…In their post-2026 operations proposal, the lower basin states said they would cut water use by 1.5 million acre-feet per year as long as Lake Powell and Lake Meadโs combined storage remains at a certain level. Shawcroft added that the question now is, at what point, do these cuts in water use begin?
โThe upper division states feel very strongly that we need to improve our storage (and) that we need additional storage. And so our concept would be that we would have that one-and-a-half reduction occur at an elevation that was higher than what they would propose. Their position, or their thought process is, if thereโs water in the system, we ought to put it to use,โ he said.
Haas added, โThe lower basin is proposing actions based on total system contents as they define it, which includes not only Lake Powell and Lake Mead but also the upstream initial units, right? So this would be Flaming Gorge, the Aspinall unit in Colorado and Navajo.โ
Aerial image of entrenched meanders of the San Juan River within Goosenecks State Park. Located in San Juan County, southeastern Utah (U.S.). Credits Constructed from county topographic map DRG mosaic for San Juan County from USDA/NRCS – National Cartography & Geospatial Center using Global Mapper 12.0 and Adobe Illustrator. Latitude 33ยฐ 31′ 49.52″ N., Longitude 111ยฐ 37′ 48.02″ W. USDA/FSA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
From email from Reclamation (Susan Novak Behery):
July 15, 2024
Due to falling flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam from 600 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 700 cfs for Wednesday, July 17th, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
El Vado Dam and Reservoir back in the day. Photo credit: USBR
Click the link to read the article on the Grist website (Jake Bittle):
July 6, 2024
Mark Garcia can see that thereโs no shortage of water in the Rio Grande this year. The river flows past his farm in central New Mexico, about 50 miles south of Albuquerque. The rush of springtime water is a welcome change after years of drought, but he knows the good times wonโt last.
As the summer continues, the river will diminish, leaving Garcia with a strict ration. Heโll be allowed irrigation water for his 300 acres just once every 30 days, which is nowhere near enough to sustain his crop of oats and alfalfa.
For decades, Garcia and other farmers on the Rio Grande have relied on water released from a dam called El Vado, which collects billions of gallons of river water to store and eventually release to help farmers during times when the river runs dry. More significantly for most New Mexico residents, the dam system also allows the city of Albuquerque to import river water from long distances for household use.
New Mexico water projects map via Reclamation
But El Vado has been out of commission for the past three summers, its structure bulging and disfigured after decades in operation โ and the government doesnโt have a plan to fix it.ย
โWe need some sort of storage,โ said Garcia. โIf we donโt get a big monsoon this summer, if you donโt have a well, you wonโt be able to water.โ
The failure of the dam has shaken up the water supply for the entire region surrounding Albuquerque, forcing the city and many of the farmers nearby to rely on finite groundwater and threatening an endangered fish species along the river. Itโs a surprising twist of fate for a region that in recent years emerged as a model for sustainablewater management in the West.
โHaving El Vado out of the picture has been really tough,โ said Paul Tashjian, the director of freshwater conservation at the Southwest regional office of the nonprofit National Audubon Society. โWeโve been really eking by every year the past few years.โ
Surface water imports from the El Vado system have generally allowed public officials in Albuquerque to limit groundwater shortages. This echoes the strategies of other large Western cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles, which have enabled population growth by tapping diverse sources of water for metropolitan regions and the farms that sit outside of them. The Biden administration is seeking to replicate this strategy in water-stressed rural areas across the region, doling out more than $8 billion in grants to support pipelines and reservoirs.
“New plot using the nClimGrid data, which is a better source than PRISM for long-term trends. Of course, the combined reservoir contents increase from last year, but the increase is less than 2011 and looks puny compared to the โholeโ in the reservoirs. The blue Loess lines subtly change. Last year those lines ended pointing downwards. This year they end flat-ish. 2023 temps were still above the 20th century average, although close. Another interesting aspect is that the 20C Mean and 21C Mean lines on the individual plots really donโt change much. Finally, the 2023 Natural Flows are almost exactly equal to 2019. (17.678 maf vs 17.672 maf). For all the hoopla about how this was record-setting year, the fact is that this year was significantly less than 2011 (20.159 maf) and no different than 2019” — Brad Udall
But the last decade has shown that this strategy isnโt foolproof โ at least not while climate change fuels an ongoing megadrought across the West. Los Angeles has lost water from both the Colorado River and from a series of reservoirs in Northern California, and Phoenix has seen declines not only from the Colorado but also from the groundwater aquifers that fuel the stateโs cotton and alfalfa farming. Now, as Albuquerqueโs decrepit El Vado dam goes out of commission, the city is trying to balance multiple fragile resources.
El Vado is an odd dam: Itโs one of only four in the United States that uses a steel faceplate to hold back water, rather than a mass of rock or concrete. The dam has been collecting irrigation water for Rio Grande farmers for close to a century, but decades of studies have shown that water is seeping through the faceplate and undermining the damโs foundations. When engineers tried to use grout to fill in the cracks behind the faceplate, they accidentally caused the faceplate to bulge out of shape, threatening the stability of the entire structure. The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages the dam, paused construction and is now back at the drawing board.
Without the ability to collect irrigation water for the farmers, the Bureau has had no choice but to let the Rio Grandeโs natural flow move downstream to Albuquerque. Thereโs plenty of water in the spring, when snow melts off the mountains and rain rushes toward the ocean. But when the rains peter out by the start of the summer, the riverโs flow reduces to a trickle.
โWe run really fast and happy in the spring, and then youโre off pretty precipitously,โ said Casey Ish, the conservation program supervisor at the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the irrigation district that supplies water to farmers like Garcia. โIt just creates a lot of stress on the system late in the summer.โ The uncertainty about water rationing causes many farmers to forego planting crops they arenโt sure theyโll be able to see to maturity, Ish added.
Construction crews attempt to repair the El Vado dam along the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The federal government has been unable to find a way to stop seepage behind the steel faceplate dam. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
The beleaguered dam also plays a critical role in providing water to the fast-growing Albuquerque metropolitan area, which is home to almost a million people. As the city grew over the past 100 years, it drained local groundwater, lowering aquifer levels by dozens of feet until the city got a reputation as โone of the biggest water-wasters in the West.โ Cities across the region were mining their groundwater in the same way, but Albuquerque managed to turn its bad habits around. In 2008, it built a $160 million water treatment plant that allowed it to clean water from the distant Colorado River, giving officials a new water source to reduce their groundwater reliance.
The loss of El Vado is jeopardizing this achievement. In order for Colorado River water to reach the Albuquerque treatment plant, it needs to travel through the same set of canals and pipelines that deliver Rio Grande water to the city and farmers, โridingโ with the Rio Grande water through the pipes. Without a steady flow of Rio Grande water out of El Vado, the Colorado River water canโt make it to the city. This means that in the summer months, when the Rio Grande dries out, Albuquerque now has to turn back to groundwater to supply its thirsty residential subdivisions.
This renewed reliance on groundwater has halted the recovery of local aquifers. The water level in these aquifers was rising from 2008 through 2020, but it slumped out around 2020 and hasnโt budged since.
โWe have had to shut down our surface water plant the last three summers because of low flows in Albuquerque,โ said Diane Agnew, a senior official at the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, which manages the regionโs water. Agnew stresses that aquifer levels are only flattening out, not falling. Still, losing El Vado storage for the long run would be detrimental to the cityโs overall water resilience.
โWe have more than enough supply to meet demand, but it does change our equation,โ she added.
The Bureau of Reclamation is looking for a way to fix the dam and restore Rio Grande water to Albuquerque, but right now its engineers are stumped. In a recent meeting with local farmers, a senior Reclamation official offered a frank assessment of the damโs future.
โWe were not able to find technical solutions to the challenges that we were seeing,โ said Jennifer Faler, the Bureauโs Albuquerque area manager, in remarks at the meeting.
The next-best option is to find somewhere else to store water for farmers. There are other reservoirs along the Rio Grande, including one large dam owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, but repurposing them for irrigation water will involve a lengthy bureaucratic process.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation told Grist that the agency โis working diligently with our partners to develop a plan and finalize agreements to help alleviate the lost storage capacityโ and that it โmay have the ability to safely store some waterโ for farms and cities next year.
In the meantime, farmers like Garcia are getting impatient. When a senior Bureau official broke the bad news at an irrigation district meeting last month, more than a dozen farmers who grow crops in the district stood up to express their frustration with the delays in the repair process, calling Reclamationโs announcement โfrustratingโ and โa shock.โ
โIf we donโt have any water for the long term, I have to let my employees go, and I guess start looking for ramen noodles someplace,โ Garcia told Grist.
Even though there are only a handful of other steel faceplate dams like El Vado in the United States, more communities across the West are likely to experience similar infrastructure issues that affect their water supply, according to John Fleck, a professor of water policy at the University of New Mexico.
โWeโve optimized entire human and natural communities around the way this aging infrastructure allows us to manipulate the flow of rivers, and weโre likely to see more and more examples where infrastructure weโve come to depend on no longer functions the way we planned or intended,โ he said.
As the West gets drier and its dams and canals continue to age, more communities may find themselves forced to strike a balance between groundwater, which is easy to access but finite, and surface water, which is renewable but challenging to obtain. The loss of El Vado shows that neither one of these resources can be relied upon solely and consistently โ and in an era of higher temperatures and aging infrastructure, even having both may not be enough.
The headwaters of the Rio Grande River in Colorado. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
The outflow at the bottom of Navajo Dam in New Mexico. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
From email from Reclamation (Susan Novak Behery):
As the forecast weather becomes warmer and drier again, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam from 350 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 500 cfs for tonight, July 3rd, at 9:00 PM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Susan Behery (sbehery@usbr.gov or 970-385-6560), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Southwestern Colorado is left with 6% of its peak snowpack earlier than usual this season in part because of a rare, sudden and large melt in late April.
Snow that gathers in Coloradoโs mountains is a key water source for the state, and a fast, early spring runoff can mean less water for farmers, ranchers, ecosystems and others in late summer. While the snow in northern Colorado is just starting to melt, southern river basins saw their largest, early snowpack drop-off this season, compared to historical data.
For Ken Curtis, the only reason irrigators in Dolores and Montezuma counties havenโt been short on water for their farms and ranches is because the areaโs reservoir, McPhee Reservoir, had water supplies left over from the above-average year in 2023.
โBecause of the carryover, the impacts arenโt quite that crazy bad,โ said Curtis, general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District. โIf we hadnโt had that carryover, it would have been a terrible year.โ
A terrible year like 2021, he added, when many irrigators who depend on water from McPhee only received 10% of their normal water supply.
The snowpack in the southwestern San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan combined basin peaked at about 18 inches April 2, then plummeted by 8 inches during the last half of April. It was the largest 14-day loss of snowpack before the end of April in this basin since the start of data collection in the 1980s, according to the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University.
The basin still held onto 1.1 inches of snow-water equivalent, the amount of liquid water in snow, as of Wednesday. Typically, the snowpack is about twice as high in late May, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
โThe Rio Grande and the southwest basins, the snow is pretty much gone, and itโs going to be gone within days to a week at this point,โ said Russ Schumacher, the state climatologist and CSU professor.
The Upper Rio Grande Basin, which spans the central-southern part of the state including the San Luis Valley, had 0.1 inch of snow-water equivalent as of Wednesday, much less than its norm for late May, which is about 1.5 inches.
Eastern and northern basins, like the South Platte Basin which includes parts of Denver, have held onto their snowpack for slightly longer than usual. These basins have above-average snowpack for late May,ย ranging from 119% to 162%ย of the historic norm, as of Wednesday [May 29, 2024].
The April decline in the southwest was caused by warm and dry conditions and sublimation, when snow and ice change into water vapor in the atmosphere without first melting into liquid water. Dust that darkens snow and speeds snowmelt also played a role, Schumacher said.
The spring runoff is a little faster than usual in the southern basins, but itโs within the realm of normal, said Brian Domonkos, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which manages snow-measurement stations around the state.
โWhat weโre seeing right now is not something that I would be alarmed about,โ Domonkos said.
Spring snowfall, storms and cooler temperatures have slowed the speed of snowmelt in some areas as well, he said.
In Durango, the Animas Riverโs flows were around 2,000 cubic feet per second Wednesday, lower than the late-May norm of 2,990 cfs.
When it comes to recreation, the lower flows might actually be a boon, said Ashleigh Tucker, who is planning a river sports event, Animas River Days, scheduled for June 1 and 2. Some races require participants to pass through hanging gates, moving both upstream and downstream through a whitewater park, she said.
โIf the waterโs super high, it makes it a lot harder to do. So as far as our events go, itโs a good level,โ she said. โBut thereโs not much snow left, so that means we wonโt really have much left for the rest of the year, which is kind of a bummer.โ
She doesnโt expect the riverโs slightly lower flows to impact attendance either: Only years with really low flows, about 1,000 cfs, have discouraged people from floating the Animas, she said.
Warm and dry conditions are likely to continue through June, then weather watchers will turn their gaze to the sky in July to watch for the monsoon season.
In the meantime, Curtis is watching inflow forecasts for McPhee Reservoir. The runoff has been lower than average so far, even after an average snowpack season, he said.
That means there might not be as much water left to carry over into 2025.
โThe monsoons will have the next impact,โ he said. โIf you see everyone going on fire restrictions, you know the monsoons havenโt shown up.โ
With the obligatory shovels in pre-softened dirt, a group of political leaders from the Navajo Nation, New Mexico state and local government, and water agencies this morning (Wed. 5/15/2024) formally inaugurated a new pipeline being built to connect the Navajo community of ToโHajiilee to the 3.5 million gallon reservoir in the picture โ clean, piped water to a community that now has one working well and water so bad no one drinks it.
One of the oldtimers whoโd been working on it for more than two decades walked up to me and said, โThis is an impossible project.โ
What he meant was that the project had overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles in the interactions between a welter of government agencies with overlapping jurisdictions and sometimes incompatible responsibilities.
I went to the event wearing two hats โ as a member of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authorityโs Technical Customer Advisory Committee, and on behalf of the Utton Center, which has a long history of working on Native American water stuff. (I was literally wearing my ABCWUA gimme cap, I donโt have an Utton one.)
ToโHajiilee, 35-ish miles west of Albuquerque, has six water wells. Five have already failed. The sixth is regularly off line. When itโs down, they have to shut down school and the clinic. When itโs working, the water is awful.
The vision statement from the Universal Access to Clean Water For Tribal Communities project is simple: โEvery Native American has the right to clean, safe, affordable water in the home ensuring a minimum quality of life.โ
In this 1999 book Development as Freedom, the Nobel laureate economist and moral philosopher Amartya Sen explains freedoms as โthe capabilities that a person has, that is, the substantive freedoms he or she enjoys to lead the kind of life he or she has reason to value.โ
โRightsโ are tricky political terrain, because theyโre often framed in negative terms โ the absence of coercion or interference from others, particularly the state. But Senโs making an affirmative argument here. It is not enough for the collective to simply get out of the individualโs way. The collective has an affirmative moral obligation to create the conditions under which the individual can flourish โ to pursue that which they โhave reason to value,โ to repeat Sen. Thatโs sorta what my friends at the Universal Access project are saying with their vision statement.
At the urging of a colleague, Iโve been reading Sen lately in an effort to make sense of the moral underpinnings of the collective choices we face as we cope with the reality of less water. (For those familiar with Sen, know that I am not reading the mathy parts โ theyโre impenetrable!)
THE PLUMBING โ PHYSICAL AND FINANCIAL
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utilityโs 7W reservoir, the tan thing in the picture, sits on high ground midway between Albuquerque and ToโHajiilee, a perfect water source for the community. In eighteen months under the current construction schedule, weโll have a 7 mile pipe from here to there.
If the tally in my notes is correct (donโt hold me to this, Iโm not a real journalist any more), itโs a ~$20 million project, with a mix of federal, state, and Navajo Nation funding.
The actual water in the pipes is the result of a fascinating agreement between the Navajo Nation and the Jicarilla Apache Nation in norther New Mexico. The Navajo Nation will lease Jicarailla water, which will be wheeled down the San Juan River, into the Rio Grande, and then diverted by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, treated, and pumped up to 7W.
THE STRUGGLES TO GET THIS DONE
Former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie OโMalley, speaking at the groundbreaking, told the story of the bare-knuckle politics it took to overcome the intransigence of a landowner that stood in the way of the project โ Western Albuquerque Land Holdings. And for sure, OโMalley and the group she worked with deserve a ton of credit for the use of their knuckles at a critical point in the struggle to get the pipeline built.
But more important is the community of ToโHajiilee itself, people like Mark Begay, my colleague on the Albuquerque water utilityโs Technical Customer Advisory Committee. For decades, Begay and the other leaders in ToโHajiilee acted on behalf of their community to pursue โthat which they had reason to valueโ โ water!
This is about the communityโs own collective agency, โthe result of collective processes and collective actions in which peopleโs interactions shape their common destiny.โ (Oscar Garza-Vรกzquez)
It was a joy to share the celebration of their success. Iโll be back in 18 months when they open the taps.
Click the link to read the article on The Durango Herald website (Reuben M. Schafir). Here’s an excerpt:
Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton visited the Pine River Indian Irrigation Project on Monday and announced $147.6 million in investments to 42 projects in 10 states facing water reliability challenges. The announcement included a $2.3 million grant to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe to address the PRIIPโs crumbling infrastructure. The funding is a part of the Bureau of Reclamationโs Watersmart Drought Resiliency program.
โFor too long, the United States has failed to live up to its responsibility to adequately fund and maintain the Pine River Indian Irrigation Project,โ Bennet said in a news release. โI was grateful to travel to Ignacio (Monday) with Commissioner Touton to welcome this investment to ensure the Southern Ute Indian Tribe can access the water it needs. There is much more work to be done, but this is a great start.โ
The project uses water from Vallecito Reservoir, managed by the Pine River Irrigation District, to irrigate aboutย 12,000 acres of land via 170 milesย of ditches and raised flumes. Tribal officials have called the degradation of the infrastructure a โticking time bomb,โ andย farmers and rancher dependent on the systemย are routinely shorted the water they need. According to a 2024 estimate reported by the Colorado Sun, PRIIP needs $35.3 million in repairs.
As weโve covered in previousposts, the peak snowpack in Coloradoโs mountains generally looked pretty decent this year, with the amount of water stored in the snow peaking pretty close to the long-term average in most areas. However, in the southern mountains, itโs been another year where the melt has happened a lot faster than it typically has in the past.
Snow water equivalent in Coloradoโs mountains with respect to the 1991-2020 median value, on (left) April 6, 2024, and (right) May 6, 2024. Source: USDA NRCS Interactive Map.
As of early April (left image above), all basins in Colorado had above average snow water equivalent, as measured by the SNOTEL network. But a month later (right image), the picture is quite different. The northern basins still look good, with a string of April snowstorms adding to the snowpack there. But southern Colorado largely missed those storms, and warm, sunny conditions, assisted by layers of dust on snow, really accelerated the melt. Cooler conditions this week will slow down the melt a bit, and a storm this weekend will add some much-needed moisture. But once the snow itself gets warmer than 32ยฐF, itโs hard to slow the melt too much. The Rio Grande basin now only has half of the snowpack it typically does on May 6.
The time series graph for the combined San Miguel, Dolores, Animas, and San Juan river basins in the southwest corner of Colorado illustrates this nicely:
Time series of snow water equivalent in the combined San Miguel, Dolores, Animas, and San Juan basins, through May 6, 2024, as measured by the SNOTEL network. Source: NRCS Colorado Snow Survey.
The trace for 2024 reached essentially an average peak, and right on time: the peak was 18.1โณ of SWE on April 2, compared to an average peak of 18.6โณ on April 1. It also stayed near that peak for about another 10 days, but then the melting progressed extremely quickly. In fact, it was the largest 14-day loss of SWE before the end of April in this basin since the start of SNOTEL data in the 1980s.
Before going into those numbers, a quick note on snowpack melt rates. In absolute terms, the fastest melts come in years when there are big snowpacks that linger late into May or early June, like 2019. Eventually that snow canโt stand up to the summer sun, and SWE goes away at a very fast rate. But in years like 2024, what weโre interested in is the snow melting quickly, and early.
So here, weโll look at the largest two-week declines in SWE prior to the end of April, and we see that the combined southwest river basins lost over 8โณ of snowpack from April 12-26 this year. That much melt so early hasnโt been observed before. The Upper Rio Grande and Arkansas basins also saw their largest 14-day SWE declines prior to April 30.
Table showing the largest 14-day declines in SWE prior to April 30 at the SNOTEL stations in the San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan; Upper Rio Grande; and Arkansas basins. Data source: NRCS Snow Survey.
If you look on the bright side, you canโt get rapid melts like this without a good snowpack to begin with. At least, unlike some really bad drought years, the water was there in the first place! But early melts have big implications for the timing of water availability. It means higher-than-normal streamflows in May, but then much lower streamflows later during the heat of summer, when the water is really needed, especially by those who donโt have access to water stored in reservoirs. And the overall water availability situation for this spring and summer isnโt looking great in southern Colorado, with the latest CBRFC forecast projecting only 90% of average flow into Blue Mesa Reservoir, 74% of average on the Animas, and 80% of average into Lake Powell.
And unfortunately, years like this have been getting more common, and that trend is expected to continue as the climate warms. These changes are addressed in detail in the water chapter of Climate Change in Colorado, so dive in to that for more details. But in general, the changes observed up to this point have been toward modest declines in peak snowpack, but robust trends toward earlier melting, and these changes have been most acute in southern Colorado. For the future, there is still considerable uncertainty about what will happen to winter precipitation: some climate projections show more winter snow, others less. But every one of them shows a shift toward earlier snowmelt, and earlier peak streamflow on the Colorado River, meaning changes to when and where our water supply is available. In other words, we might need to get used to the snowpack looking pretty good in the southern mountains in March, but being disappointed in the numbers when May comes around.
