Headwaters Summer 2012: Southwestern Colorado

C o l o r a d o F o u n d at i o n f o r Wat e r E d u c at i o n | S u m m e r 2 0 1 2

Indian Nations’ Long Road to Water

Growing the Future of Southwest Ag Balancing Act on the Dolores River

Exploring Telluride’s Mining Past Heritage + Recreation + Renewal = Water Headwaters | Summer 2012

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CFWE News & Notes

Colorado’s Year of Water Continues The Colorado Foundation for Water Education is proud to call itself a partner in Water 2012, a statewide effort that launched in January to connect Coloradans with their water. The Water 2012 campaign has already seen great success. As of May 1, we had reached more than 11,000 people at various conferences, expos and events.

Alice Madden (far left) presents sustainability award to CFWE representatives (left to right) Sen. Gail Schwartz, Kristin Maharg, Nicole Seltzer and Justice Greg Hobbs.

CFWE Receives Award from Wirth Chair The pleasure of a job well done is often enough for Colorado Foundation for Water Education staff to feel good about their work. But enough cannot be said about the importance of formal recognition. It was with great gratitude that CFWE Executive Director Nicole Seltzer accepted a Wirth Chair Sustainability Award from the University of Colorado at Denver to celebrate our work being a “Creator of a Sustainable Future.” CFWE, along with five other deserving recipients, celebrated at a luncheon in Denver on April 25. In addition to Nicole, Program Manager Kristin Maharg and board members Justice Greg Hobbs and Sen. Gail Schwartz were on hand to accept the award from Alice Madden, Wirth Chair in Sustainable Development. Thank you for the honor!

“Your Water Colorado” Blog Community Share your expertise, publicize your events and discuss water topics! As we celebrate Water 2012, CFWE staff and a group of volunteers are blogging to reach new audiences, provide a forum for discussion and share information about Water 2012 news and events.

Since the blog’s January launch, we’ve posted more than 40 articles and received more than 75 comments, facilitating some great conversations.

Subscribe to the “Your Water Colorado” blog to receive water news stories directly to your email inbox. Visit the blog at blog.yourwatercolorado.org and sign up for the RSS feed so you don’t miss a word. Then contact us to suggest story ideas or to become a blog contributor.

Scan this code with your smart phone or other device to access blog.yourwatercolorado.org.

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• The 2012 Speakers Bureau has reached more than 1,000 people through presentations about water in Colorado. Using CFWE’s Water Fluency suite of resources, the Speakers Bureau has given more than 20 presentations and contacted at least 70 civic groups to make them aware of Water 2012 festivities.

• Traveling interpretive displays focused on water have been on the move. They are scheduled to appear at more than 75 libraries, museums and various other events statewide throughout the year.

Watch for one near you!

• The Water 2012 Book Club’s featured authors have given 10 talks with more than 1,200 people in attendance. Chat with book club authors and experts over the “Your Water Colorado” blog.

• The Water 2012 Higher Education Committee helped coordinate two student networking events in Durango and Denver, bringing together more than 100 students and water professionals. Two additional networking events are tentatively scheduled in Greeley and Grand Junction later in the year.

Let’s wrap up the year together! Join us and share what you’ve accomplished and learned as we brainstorm ways to continue connecting Coloradans to their water during a conference slated for the end of the year.

Stay tuned for dates and details—and until then stay involved. Participate in the “A Day Without Water” video contest, read the blog and find events in your area by browsing the online calendar at www.water2012.org.

yourwatercolorado.org

Save the Date! October 9-11, 2012

2012 Sustaining Colorado Watersheds Conference Water 2012 | Westin Riverfront Resort | Avon, Colorado This annual conference expands cooperation and collaboration throughout Colorado in natural resource conservation, protection, and enhancement by informing participants about new issues and innovative projects and through invaluable networking.

Hosted by:

Join us for: • A half-day field trip in conjunction with the Eagle River Watershed Council.

• Speakers and panels presenting on 3 tracks: education & policy, water quality & quantity, and protecting & conserving your watershed.

• Interactive workshops before the start of the conference!

Early registration price: • $180/Members • $205/Non-Members • One day registration available

coloradowater.org/Conferences

In Service to Colorado Water Do you believe in the impact of engaging Coloradans in their water world? CFWE has ideas for how you can contribute to our mission of water education: • We are now publishing your best photos of Colorado water in Headwaters magazine. Enter our photo contest and the winning photo will be featured on a two-page horizontal spread. Other favorites may appear throughout the publication. For the fall 2012 issue of Headwaters, we are looking for photos of agriculture as it relates to water, communities and economics. The submission deadline is August 17. Find more information at yourwatercolorado.org/magazine.

• Share your opinions and experiences on the “Your Water Colorado” blog. We are looking for story ideas and guest bloggers to help generate thoughtful discussion on all water topics. Contact blog editor Caitlin Coleman at caitlin@yourwatercolorado.org, and subscribe today at yourwatercoloradoblog.wordpress.com.

Nicole Seltzer

• The 2012 Speakers Bureau represents experts across the state, dedicated to educating others on the basics of Colorado water. We have partnered with Rotary Club to deliver presentations to their members and hope to reach many other civic groups with your help. Visit water2012.org/activities/water-speakers and let us know if you have a connection to a civic group that is interested in learning why water is important to Colorado’s past, present and future.

Cyclists join CFWE along the South Platte River Trail to learn about the health of urban waterways.

Headwaters | Summer 2012

On Tour With CFWE tour/tʊr/: A journey to various places of interest for business, pleasure or instruction

Have you had the pleasure of riding along on CFWE’s annual River Basin Tour? After exploring each corner of the state over the past 10 years, we have built upon the success of this program to create a series of mini-tours for broader audiences.

In March, we toured the National Ice Core Laboratory with climate scientists and educators to learn about the connection between water resources and Colorado’s climate and ecosystems. In May, we gathered a group of avid and aspiring cyclists along the South Platte River in Denver to discover the relationship between urban redevelopment and river health. In June, we showcased the water future of the growing South Metro area to a group of legislators and water professionals. In the second half of 2012, look for more Urban Waters Bike Tours, plus adventures through Colorado’s farms and more at www.yourwatercolorado.org. If you have an idea for where to host our next minitour, contact Program Manager Kristin Maharg at kristin@yourwatercolorado.org.

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2012 President’s Award In celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Colorado Foundation for Water Education presents its President’s Award for lifetime achievement in water education to Diane Hoppe and Lew Entz. The annual President’s Award is designed to honor individuals for their commitment to water resources education and their advancement of CFWE’s mission. Who better to honor this year than two of the organization’s founders? The award was presented at an annual reception held at the Colorado Governor’s Mansion in Denver on April 20.

Diane Hoppe and Lew Entz

iStock.com (2), insets: Stephen Cardinale

Wr ingin g Wate r E duca ti on Out of Dr oug h t

CFWE and Justice Greg Hobbs (far left) honor the contributions of (left to right) Diane Hoppe, Lew Entz and Emmett Jordan.

by Justice Greg Hobbs In the spring of the devastating 2002 drought, Representative Diane Hoppe and Senator Lewis Entz helped to steer CFWE into existence. They along with Senator Jim Isgar sponsored the legislation establishing this new statewide, nonprofit water education organization designed “to promote a better understanding of water issues through educational opportunities and resources so Colorado citizens will understand water as a limited resource and will make informed decisions.”

Chairs in 2003 to 2004 of the key House and Senate water committees, Hoppe and Entz served on the Foundation’s first board of trustees, Hoppe as president. Together with other members of the original board, under the leadership of then-Executive Director Karla Brown, they spurred development of the River Basin Tours, the Water Leaders program, the Citizen’s Guide series to essential water topics and Headwaters magazine.

As the drought deepened into crisis, Hoppe laid out her vision in the inaugural fall 2003 edition of Headwaters, setting the tone for the Foundation’s educational mission: “In this issue we recount the 2002 drought—its severity and what it says about our vulnerability to future droughts… growth, legal developments, drought, floods and the use of water in the everyday lives of Coloradans are some of the very public and personal themes we will explore in every issue.”

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Diane Hoppe A third-generation Sterling girl whose physician father delivered her, Diane Hoppe knows dry and the value of wet. She and former husband Mike were dryland farmers in northeastern Colorado from 1975 to 1985. “We had a cattle and wheat operation. We prayed for rain a lot.”

They have two sons. After their divorce in 1985, Hoppe moved back into Sterling and got her start in public life by “being the ears” for Congressman Hank Brown in his northeastern Colorado district. Brown, who forged the creation of the Cache la Poudre Wild and Scenic River Act in 1986, then became a U.S. senator, bringing Hoppe along. “Hank never had a bad thing to say about an individual. He knew how to have a difference of opinion without thinking those who don’t agree with you are bad people.”

Thrust into the controversy over designation of new wilderness areas, Hoppe learned from Brown “how to keep a calm demeanor and take notes.” Together senators Brown and Wirth, of opposite parties, brought home a wilderness act protecting water and environmental interests. “Hank believed Colorado’s Instream Flow Program could help resolve wilderness issues.

But federal agencies didn’t trust the state to enforce the instream flow water rights once the Colorado Water Conservation Board got them.”

By careful boundary drawing, combined with legislative language disclaiming any in-

Colorado Foundation for Water Education

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tent to create a federal reserved water right, at least for those new wilderness additions, the Colorado congressional delegation obtained enactment of the 1993 Colorado Wilderness Act. Two years later, emphasizing that the CWCB appropriates instream flow water rights in the name of the people, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the state has a “fiduciary duty” to enforce them.

Hoppe served in the Colorado House of Representatives from 1999 to 2006, succeeding fellow Republican Don Ament, whose political campaigns she had managed over the years. In 2003, when the drought was at its worst and junior water right holders in the South Platte Basin were being forced to stop using water in favor of the most senior rights, Hoppe obtained the enactment of a provision allowing the State Engineer to approve substitute supply plans and temporary changes of water rights. This allowed junior rights holders to use water if they provided replacement water to the seniors and filed for a plan to make up for their depletions in water court.

Recently appointed to the CWCB by Governor John Hickenlooper, Hoppe joins another of her revered public office mentors, former Speaker of the Colorado House Russ George, as a member of that important board. “I am going to do a lot of listening as a new member of the CWCB,” Hoppe says. “I am learning from the Western

yourwatercolorado.org

Colorado Foundation for Water Education Slope members about their concerns. I hope we can help to keep ag whole. Cities and farms are part of the economic engine, and I know that agricultural return flows in the South Platte Basin contribute water to wildlife wetlands. I’m interested in helping new water leaders. Involving legislators in the River Basin Tours, if legislative funding allows, is also very important.”

Lew Entz Lew Entz has also been a member of the CWCB, though briefly, from 1999 to 2001, serving as its chair in 2000. Born to a San Luis Valley farming family, as a kid he minded the “three P’s”—pigs, peas and potatoes. “The pigs ate the field peas.

Those peas were a great green manure for the potatoes as well.”

Entz has since minded the P’s and Q’s of a distinguished public service career, specializing in water for the San Luis Valley and for Colorado. First elected as an Alamosa County Commissioner in 1969 extending to 1982, he was elected and re-elected to the Colorado House of Representatives for 16 years, from 1983 to 1998.

A member of the CWCB the next two years, he returned to the Colorado General Assembly as a senator from 2001 to 2006, succeeding fellow Republican Gigi Dennis when she went from the legislature to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

As a farmer and a legislator, Entz appeared in a twinkling here, there and everywhere from his home in Hooper. “I was at my legislative desk for roll call in the morning and back to the farm the same afternoon. It helped that my son, Mike, was managing the farm.” A licensed

pilot, he made the landing strip at Center his winged horse corral. In addition to partnering with wife, Lora, in raising three daughters and a son, he has devoted particular attention to transportation, all things agricultural, and veterans’ health. He was a Marine from 1951 to 1953 during the Korean War. As a legislator, Entz carried nearly 70 water bills. “The most important was the Subdistrict Bill, 222, in 2004,” Entz says. In 1998, he obtained passage of the Rio Grande Decision Support System. “It was quite a fight. Front Range cities kept eyeing the valley’s water.

We needed to know what we had for legs to stand on.” Housed in the State Engineer’s Office, RGDSS has become a tool for understanding, monitoring and helping to manage the complicated hydrology of the Rio Grande River Basin, including the confined and unconfined tributary aquifers of the Closed Basin area north of the river, in connection with the Rio Grande River Compact between Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

A decade of drought at the outset of the 21st century severely reducing mountain recharge runoff, combined with a considerable expansion of sprinkler irrigation since the 1970s in the Closed Basin, pitched unconfined aquifer storage water into a 1 million acre-foot deficit. “We had to do something. So I sponsored the Subdistrict legislation so we could tax ourselves to cut back on our groundwater use and rebuild the aquifer. We’d seen what happened on the South Platte with state-enforced well curtailments during the drought.”

Subdistrict No. 1 is a local public entity of the larger Rio Grande Water Conservation District, which the Colorado General Assembly established in 1967. In December 2011, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld Subdistrict No. 1’s groundwater management plan designed to replace injurious depletions to senior Rio Grande surface water rights annually, as well as fallow 40,000 acres of land over the upcoming years in order to achieve sustainable groundwater pumping levels.

CFWE Recognizes Visual Contribution

This year, CFWE also honored graphic designer Emmett Jordan for his invaluable contribution to the Foundation’s water education mission. His design graces the pages of 28 issues of Headwaters magazine and nine Citizen’s Guides on various topics to-date, beginning with CFWE’s first publication, the Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Water Law, and leading to this summer 2012 issue of Headwaters.

To express its gratitude, the board presented Emmett with a plaque that reads, “You know what water means. From your home on the eastern grasslands, you enjoy a perfect 360-degree view of what it means to be a Coloradan.

The farms, the cities, the people, the creatures, mesa, mountain, canyon, sky, bonded to the water droplet in the land of the Great Divide, this is the palette of your creative presentation, in the challenge of scarcity the opportunity for community. On behalf of the Board of Trustees of CFWE, we thank you for your vision and the product of your hard work.” q

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Headwaters | Summer 2012

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If you value our work, please invest in it by making us a part of your annual spending budget. Become a member at the $50, $100 or $250 level today at www.cfwe.org/join.

Nicole Seltzer, CFWE Executive Director

A nonprofit’s beginning can come in many va-

rieties and shape its work for decades. 2012 is CFWE’s 10th anniversary, and I’ve been reflecting on how our legislative founding has gotten us to where we are today. The use of state funds for our start-up created high expectations for quick “return on investment” in the form of tours and publications. Many developmental questions such as, “What change do we expect to effect from our work?” and “How do we know when we’ve been successful?” were largely left unexplored as CFWE did its best to carve a niche in the world of water education.

That focus on deliverables gave CFWE many early and apparent successes, such as our Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Water Law. And while we will always produce quality water education materials, I view my responsibility as executive director to also seek answers to those larger questions. It’s one thing to say we’ve reached 7,000 people in a year, but it’s quite another to understand how those people were impacted. We’ve made progress in this area recently, and it has shifted my thinking about our work.

After convening a group of friends and education experts to help us explore these questions, the board adopted a framework for evaluating our programs in January. The framework lays out measurable goals in the following areas: increases in awareness; enhancement of understanding; examination of diverse values; development of leadership skills; and a commitment to informed water decision-making. CFWE will be examining all of our programs for their contribution to these goals in the near future.

In the meantime, CFWE is close to wrapping up an evaluation of our Water Leaders program. The evaluation, conducted by an outside firm and funded by a generous Denver donor, seeks to understand the value the program brings to participants, their employers and the Colorado water world. This year-long process has helped me see both the strengths and opportunities within the program,

and I hope to dedicate more staff resources to it in the future. Look for information on this work later this summer on the CFWE website.

Another area CFWE examined recently is our revenue stream.

We receive funds from the state of Colorado, water organizations and related businesses through membership and sponsorship, attendance fees at events, and sales of publications.

Our support is broad, but it needs more balance as a handful of entities currently provide more than 50 percent of our revenue.

CFWE is now considering strategies to diversify our funding mix, and membership will likely have a starring role in future fundraising efforts. CFWE currently has over 400 members, but more than 7,000 people receive Headwaters magazine. If you value our work, please invest in it by making us a part of your annual spending budget. Become a member at the $50, $100 or $250 level today at www.cfwe.org/join.

We’ve received an overwhelmingly positive response to the changes we instituted in the January 2012 issue of Headwaters.

The redesign process was a big undertaking, and we are glad you like the result. We heard things like, “This last issue is one for the record books. Really stellar work, folks,” and “The new features, including the water facts, the shorter stories, and next steps are great additions.”

You will see that many of those changes are here to stay! As we work to appeal to both our “water fluent” members and to those just beginning their water education, we hope you will continue to share thoughts. Any feedback, including corrections or future story ideas, can be directed to headwaters@cfwe.org.

Have a wonderful summer, and don’t forget to check the Water 2012 calendar for events happening across Colorado at www.water2012.org. The initiative has reached more than 11,000 people so far this year with activities ranging from book clubs to speakers bureaus to water festivals. Now is a great time to take the next step!

Executive Director

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Colorado Foundation for Water Education

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yourwatercolorado.org

Contents Summer 2012

18 Colorado’s Southwest

By Jerd Smith Home not only to the arroyos and mesas of the Four Corners region, but to the high, craggy peaks of the San Juan Mountains and its wild rivers, Colorado’s southwestern corner is diverse and spread out. Yet, the region’s water communities are going the distance to work together.

24 Ute Water

By Gail Binkly On two reservations on the New Mexico border, water is a prerequisite to prosperity. Why it took so long to get water to the reservations, and how the region finally settled its differences to the satisfaction of all.

29 Cultivating Optimism

By Jesse James McTigue Southwestern Colorado has long valued its agricultural tradition, but as an older generation moves on, who will take up the plow? What must be done to help make farming a sustainable venture?

34 Dialogue on the Dolores

By Joshua Zaffos Why a conversation about managing flows was necessary, and how it’s yielding results.

Water is…

11 Heritage

12 Energy

13 Recreation

14 Collaboration

16 Renewal

37 Travel

The crazy lengths gold-rushera miners went to in building Colorado’s Hanging Flume; How today’s water picture mirrors that faced by the Ancestral Puebloan people nearly a millenium ago.

Worth more than just a relaxing soak, Pagosa’s hot springs may just power greenhouses in the future; Drilling for coalbed methane gas has a byproduct— water—and the state is keeping a closer eye on the impact of its withdrawal.

With water rights in hand, Durango works to revamp the state’s oldest whitewater park; Could this be Colorado’s next state park? Lake Nighthorse remains fenced off for now, but is expected to open for recreation in 2013.

Why do we love our rivers?

Workgroups explore the collective values held by five river basin communities, in hopes of developing appropriate protection mechanisms.

The San Miguel is a freeflowing river—one that used to run dry for a quarter-mile, but is now connected; A local company propogates seeds for native plant species, and strengthens local reclamation projects in the process; The 10-year battle to revive the ailing Rio Blanco.

Telluride may be more glamourous today, but it has its roots as a mining town.

Pack your weekend bag— there’s plenty of history and natural beauty here to explore for days.

By Jill Seyfarth

Background photos by John Bartholow (top) and Jeremy Wade Shockley/The Southern Ute Drum (bottom). Inset photos by (clockwise from top): Greg Hobbs, Jeremy Wade Shockley/The Southern Ute Drum, Nathan Fey, Jeremy Wade Shockley.

On the cover: Ute Mountain Ute tribal member Michael Vicenti on the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch. Photo by Gunnar Conrad.

Headwaters | Summer 2012

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Contributors As the mother of two young daughters living in the high mountains of Telluride, Colo., freelance writer Jesse James McTigue knows firsthand the difficulty of getting fresh, local food on the table in southwestern Colorado. After interviewing a myriad of agriculturalists in the region for this issue (“Cultivating Optimism,” page 29), McTigue became privy not only to the challenges facing local farmers, but also to the innovative solutions and creative initiatives emerging in the region. “Despite the challenges, there is a palpable optimism for the future of agriculture in southwestern Colorado,” she says. “I’ve never understood so clearly the importance of buying locally and organic and knowing my farmer.”

Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has written about western issues for decades.

A native of Colorado Springs, Binkly grew up with an appreciation of the importance of water to the region, but knew little about Native American water and the complexities of their water rights settlements until researching her article for this month’s issue (“Ute Water,” page 24). She lives in Cortez, Colo., which sits near both of the state’s two Ute reservations, and is co-owner and editor of the monthly Four Corners Free Press, a regional newsmagazine.

Jerd Smith is a Boulder-based writer and editor with a special interest in water and conservation issues. Of working on this issue (“Colorado’s Southwest,” page 18), she says, “Despite its small population, Colorado’s Southwest still faces many of the problems that haunt the rest of the state, such as water quality, recreational flow management and agricultural supply issues. But its policy makers, known for their rugged independence and ability to work across treacherous mountain passes and different belief systems, are intent on testing new ideas and new ways of managing water to ensure this one-of-a-kind region has a healthy, secure water future.”

Joshua Zaffos has long wanted to float the Dolores River, and he’s followed the timing and flow constraints of the river for years. “It’s really encouraging to report on and learn about how stakeholders in the Dolores River Basin are finding solutions to meet recreational, agricultural and environmental needs in the region,” he says of working on this story (“Dialogue on the Dolores,” page 34). Zaffos writes on the environment and science from Fort Collins, Colo., and his work has been published

by High Country News, Miller-McCune, Wired, Grist and the Daily Climate.

Gunnar Conrad is an international, award-winning photographer who lives in Durango, Colo. A sixth-generation Coloradan descended from miners and ranchers, he loves nothing more than being outdoors, especially in the West, just “looking at stuff,” and trying to find that next image. After shooting for this issue (“Ute Water,” page 24), Conrad says, “I especially enjoyed the assignment on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation—seeing the emerald green fields in the middle of that dry landscape, and talking with Michael Vicente about their vision for the farm and ranch project.”

Jeremy Wade Shockley is a self-taught photographer who has been exploring foreign lands and cultures from an early age. In recent years he has returned to his home in the Four Corners region to explore various aspects of the American West, from ranching to Native American culture. “While journalism always presents its own set of challenges,” he says, “I enjoy working with people who are involved in the community, learning about issues that directly, and indirectly affect us all—water management is certainly a key example.” Today, Shockley, whose images appear throughout this issue, is working as a professional photojournalist for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. He resides in the mountains outside of Durango, Colo.

Colorado Foundation for Water Education 1580 Logan St., Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203 303-377-4433 • www.yourwatercolorado.org

Board Members Rita Crumpton President

Justice Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr. 1st Vice President

Callie Hendrickson Secretary

Reagan Waskom Assistant Secretary

Alan Hamel Treasurer

Alan Matlosz

Assistant Treasurer

Becky Brooks Nick Colglazier Lisa Darling Steve Fearn Jennifer Gimbel Eric Hecox Pete Kasper Trina McGuire-Collier Rebecca Mitchell Reed Morris Sen. Gail Schwartz Travis Smith Gregg TenEyck Chris Treese Steve Vandiver

Staff

Nicole Seltzer Executive Director

Kristin Maharg Program Manager

Caitlin Coleman Communications Coordinator

Nona Shipman OSM/VISTA Water 2012

Mission Statement The mission of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education is to promote better understanding of water resources through education and information. The Foundation does not take an advocacy position on any water issue.

iStock.com

Acknowledgments The Colorado Foundation for Water Education thanks the people and organizations who provided review, comment and assistance in the development of this issue.

Headwaters Magazine is published three times a year by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. Headwaters is designed to provide Colorado citizens with balanced and accurate information on a variety of subjects related to water resources. Copyright 2012 by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. ISSN: 1546-0584 Edited

by Jayla Poppleton. Designed by Emmett Jordan.

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Ten

T h i n g s To D o In This Issue: Jayla Poppleton, Editor

Southwestern Colorado is a lot of things: rugged, diverse, uniquely beautiful. One thing it’s not, is for the faint of heart. It seems to have taken a certain scrappy, industrious mindset, one of both risk and fortitude, for people to carve a living in this corner of Colorado—which is as far as you can get from the state’s economic hub in Denver. If you’ve ever been to an undeveloped part of the Four Corner’s region, or ventured over Wolf Creek Pass in the winter, you can understand what I mean.

Unlike, say, Denver and northeastern Colorado’s South Platte Basin, where one major river snakes its way from headwaters to state line, southwestern Colorado is a conglomeration of many smaller river basins, which flow across the state’s borders separately and are managed individually. Known as Water Division 7 by Colorado’s Division of Water Resources, or as the Southwest Basin by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the region hosts a hodgepodge of rivers grouped together. Faced with certain obstacles, the region’s community and water planners have found benefit, past and present, in joining forces.

Only after decades of compromise, thanks to the long-sighted vision of Ute leaders and other non-Indian water leaders, has the region’s Animas-La Plata Project finally come to fruition with the 2011 completion of Ridges Basin Reservoir, also called Lake Nighthorse.

The Animas-La Plata’s timeline is no anomaly for how these things go. Regional water planners know they must get way out in front of future water demand to have storage projects ready in time. And they are intuitively protective of the ability to tap local rivers for water supplies needed down the road. On the other hand, the region cherishes recreational opportunity and scenic beauty and, thus, a large community of conservation-minded folk hope to preserve the wonderful wildness of the region’s rivers.

What’s amazing is how so many people with different priorities have now come together to work on plotting the future of their shared rivers. If the tribes and non-Indian water districts and communities worked together to get past water projects built, these new collaborative efforts are working to lay out all their divergent priorities and interests, then identify the overlaps and weave together workable solutions.

One regional water leader told me his entire career has taught him that “environmental stewardship is most effective when everyone who knows and cares about a particular landscape is brought together to pool their interests, knowledge, affiliations and personal sense of responsibility to work towards agreed-upon goals and measurable progress.” Indeed, if this is happening anywhere in the state, it is happening now in southwestern Colorado.

Read on to sample the concerns, and the vision, of Colorado’s Southwest Basin, not only in relation to river protection and water management, but to its transitioning agricultural community as well. Brace yourself, because optimism and ingenuity appear to be highly contagious these days.

1

Attend a Water 2012 event (inside front cover).

2

Sign up for the “Your Water Colorado” blog feed (inside front cover).

3

Visit one of Colorado’s 14 waterrights supported whitewater parks (page 13).

4

Connect with your basin roundtable to explore regional water concerns (page 23).

5

Take a visual tour of the Southwest Basin (page 20).

6

Tap into your local food market to eat fresh and support local growers (page 30).

7

Visit the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park (page 28).

8

Attend a meeting of the Dolores River Dialogue (page 33).

9

Visit Telluride to explore old mining sites and hydropower plants (page 37).

10

Become a member of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education (page 4).

n Jayla Poppleto Editor

Headwaters | Summer 2012

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Colorado’s rivers flow with the lifeblood of the West

Morning Light Over the San Miguel Looking upstream toward its headwaters near Telluride, the San Miguel River flows west, draining a 1,500-square-mile watershed. Its flows are used to irrigate more than 23,000 acres before they join the Dolores River near Uravan.

Winning photo submission by James Heath (See page 1 for photo contest details.)

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yourwatercolorado.org

Heritage > Energy > Recreation > Collaboration > Renewal

Water

Headwaters | Summer 2012

is

Life

9

Publications from Colorado Supreme Court Justice Greg Hobbs – Fascinating Insights, Contemplations, Inspiration, and Education from one of Colorado’s leading water authorities

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Justice Greg Hobbs practiced environmental, land use, transportation and water law for 23 years before becoming a member of the Colorado Supreme Court in 1996. He currently serves as Vice-President for the Colorado Foundation for Water Education and a Co-Convener of the Water Judges’ Educational Project, Dividing the Waters (National Judicial College).

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Water is

Heritage

Restoration workers rappel over the rim of the Dolores River Canyon to reach the 120-year-old Hanging Flume.

Aging Flume Hangs On It may be the romance of the gold rush or else the feat of engineering alone, but Colorado’s Hanging Flume draws up to 3,000 people each year to marvel the cliff-hanging spectacle in western Colorado. In 2006, the wooden flume, situated precariously 100 feet above the Dolores River, reached the World Monuments Watch List of the top 100 most imperiled cultural heritage sites.

Built between 1889 and 1891, the Hanging Flume funneled up to 8 million gallons of water per day to the Bancroft Claim in the historical town of Uravan. Many flumes were built at the time to transport water to mining sites and pressurize it by forcing it through a hose.

The force of the water cut into the hillside and washed debris into a sluice box where gold was filtered out. The Hanging Flume is not only the most intact of the remaining flumes in Colorado but the longest—extending for almost 10 miles—and most of that hangs from the side of a cliff.

“You look up the Dolores River and see three football lengths of the flume—it’s pretty impressive. It makes you think of the lost art and ingenuity of creating something like that,” says Chris Miller, executive director of the Western Colorado Interpretive Association. Miller’s organization reconstructed 48 feet of the flume in April 2012, making it the only hanging flume preserved for public education. —Caitlin Coleman

Courtesy Western Colorado Interpretive Association

Could you have survived in the desert southwest during the 1200s? Where would you get your water? How would you grow your food? Coloradans today have more in common with the Mesa Verde archaeological region’s Ancestral Puebloan people than some might think. There, in the area that includes today’s Mesa Verde National Park as well as Canyons of the Ancients and Hovenweep national monuments, a complex civilization subsisted for 4,000 years.

The Ancestral Puebloans, also sometimes called the Anasazi, reached a peak population of about 30,000 people—the region’s current population isn’t much greater—before abruptly departing the area, likely in pursuit of water resources.

Dr. Mark Varien, research and education chair with the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, likens the pressures that may have pushed the ancient people from the archaeologically rich area to that which today’s Coloradans also face. “The climate was deteriorating at the same time that the population was growing.

That put a stress on the social system and conflict increased,” Varien explains. There were additional factors like overhunted game

and depleted forests. “Together those were the conditions that resulted in Pueblo people moving from here and settling in areas further south—where they still live today.”

Since 2000 B.C., when the earliest corn found in the Mesa Verde region dates back to, people grew crops using dryland farming techniques, nurturing corn varieties adapted to require little moisture. New inventions led to continued innovation, the population grew, and the culture changed exponentially, developing into what Varien calls one of the world’s most aesthetically rich cultures.

“Water has always been key,” Varien says. “[The Ancestral Puebloans] gained a detailed and intimate knowledge of the environment that they lived in and figured out sustainable ways to live in this environment that other people would consider marginal.”

Varien believes we can learn from the ancient people, who prospered for thousands of years longer than today’s communities have persisted thus far. “People appreciate that the Pueblo people did more than just survive,” he says. “They thrived.”

—Caitlin Coleman

The 10,000-square-mile Mesa Verde archaeological region contains up to 100 archaeological sites per square mile in areas, including ancient reservoirs that Ancestral Puebloans used to store precious drinking water.

Headwaters | Summer 2012

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Emmett Jordan

Echoes of the Ancient Ones

Water is Energy

The small town of Pagosa Springs is named for its claim to fame: the with the Geothermal Management Company.

A positive outcome would please the Geothermal Greenhouse largest and deepest hot springs on the planet. The springs provide a tourist draw—and a renewable energy source. Since 1982, the town Partnership, a group that’s been working to engage the commuhas operated a geothermal heating system, supplying hot water used nity and obtain land, water and funding to build greenhouses where for space heating to 13 commercial and two residential customers, residents can grow food, educate their children and attract tourists. including local schools, churches, a bank and the jail. Still, residents “We do feel that this is something the community will take pride in— of Pagosa hope to do more, like use thermal energy for additional it will highlight this great resource,” says Kathy Keyes, a founding space heating, to warm a system of greenhouses, to develop a fish member of the partnership. “It’s an intrinsic resource that we can hatchery, maybe to create a botanical education program—maybe. use to further ourselves.” —Caitlin Coleman “We’re trying to look at the resources we have here—of course geothermal is one,” says Phil Starks, sanitation supervisor for Pagosa Springs. At the town’s bidding, students from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden and researchers with the Frisco-based Geothermal Management Company are conducting a feasibility study this year to determine whether Pagosa’s hot springs can be further developed and to identify the degree of additional energy that could be obtained.

One concern researchers will evaluate is whether additional development could deplete the springs or cause decreases in pressure that would impact existing geothermal users. Provided the researchers find that is not the case, they will suggest additional ways to make use of the water, most likely for additional space heating, aquaculture or The Springs Resort is one of two spas that make use of minerally-rich water from the same hot springs used for space heating in Pagosa. Geothermal water rights have been obtained to put the water to agribusiness, says consultant Gerry Huttrer beneficial use.

Permits for Gas-Produced Water

Now You Need Them, Now You Don’t In a region harboring the San Juan Basin, the second-largest coalbed methane gas reserve in the country, a few thousand gallons of water produced daily at each active gas well can make a difference. Southwestern Colorado, whose Montezuma, La Plata and Archuleta counties overlay the northern San Juan Basin, is rife with coalbed methane (CBM), which is extracted from coal seams often found in shallower formations than conventional natural gas and is estimated to produce five to 20 gallons of water per minute for each well.

“Prior to say four or five years ago, at the State Engineer’s Office we looked at this produced water as waste water,” says Rege Leach, division engineer for southwestern Colorado’s Water Division 7. “We did not get involved in that water’s administration.”

Now, Colorado’s State Engineer’s Office, also known as the Division of Water Resources, is busy issuing well permits to natural gas companies for the water extracted during CBM production; many of those wells had been operating for years—sans regulation.

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A 2005 court case changed that. Two local ranching families, the Vances and Fitzgeralds, worried that gas drilling could deplete the springs they used to irrigate their land and sued the State Engineer’s Office. The case reached the Colorado Supreme Court in 2009, where the justices ruled that water produced from CBM wells is a beneficial use of water subject to administration and permitting by the State Engineer. Although that ruling was specific to CBM wells, it applied more broadly to water produced during other oil and gas drilling.

Suddenly, says Leach, “the Division of Water Resources and the State Engineer were in this mass rush to get well permits to several thousand wells that were already drilled.”

Leach also began working with gas companies on augmentation plans to ensure that senior water rights holders, like the Vances, wouldn’t lose water because of CBM pumping. While companies await approval of their augmentation plans, they are leasing water from Lemon and Vallecito reservoirs, allowing that water to flow downstream to senior

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rights holders to compensate for the water they’re removing from the ground.

Immediately following the Vance ruling, Colorado’s legislature passed a bill giving the State Engineer authority to determine whether or not water extracted during oil and gas drilling, not just CBM pumping, is drawn from a formation that impacts surface streams. If not, the water is considered nontributary and is therefore not subject to the prior appropriation system, nor will it require augmentation plans or well permits.

The saga continues. In September 2011, the Greeley water court ruled in favor of State Engineer Dick Wolfe and his rules for determining tributary and nontributary groundwater. However, the court said those rules should not apply to the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, where 90 percent of the region’s natural gas drilling occurs—this means that much of the “waste” water coming from natural gas extraction in southwestern Colorado is still in legal limbo.

—Caitlin Coleman

yourwatercolorado.org

Dick Stenzel

Probing Pagosa’s Springs

Water is

Recreation

Reserving Water for Rapids Play—it may not sound like a legal term at all, but Durango residents are finding that water rights, like their relatively new recreational inchannel diversion (RICD), can be fun. The city of Durango received a conditional, or placeholder, RICD on the Animas River’s Smelter Rapids in 2007, and is now in the throes of designing a high-performance whitewater park. The water right, ranging from 185 cubic feet per second in the winter to 1,400 cfs in the summer, secures water in this segment of river just downstream of downtown Durango in the event of future diversions or dams upstream. To finalize the right, the city must first build its whitewater park, which it hopes to do by 2013.

Durango has been manipulating the river at Smelter Rapids since the 1990s, long before it obtained the RICD. “This is the first community that really had a whitewater park,” says Andy Cora with Four Corners River Sports. Many other Colorado towns have since caught on and developed their own whitewater parks. “Over the years we’ve seen fewer people making Durango a paddling destination,” Cora says. Still, recreation on the 7.5-mile stretch brings

In Colorado, 14 communities have obtained water rights called recreational in-channel diversions to protect adequate flows for whitewater parks— Aspen, Avon, Breckenridge, Durango, Fort Collins, Golden, Littleton, Longmont, Pueblo, Silverthorne, Steamboat and Vail, as well as Chaffee County and the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District. Applications are pending for Carbondale and for Grand and Pitkin counties.

State park or not, an outdoor playground awaits

1.5

5,500 163,000 $7.8 million

miles between downtown Durango and Lake Nighthorse

acres of federal property in Lake Nighthorse recreation area

So close, you could almost touch it—or

swim, boat, fish and otherwise enjoy Lake Nighthorse—if it weren’t for the fence.

“It’s this beautiful thing we can see from County Road 210. It’s amazing and super close to Durango but nobody can touch it because there’s a fence around it,” says Joy Lujan, community planner with the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trail, and Conservation Assistance Program.

Although the reservoir, constructed as part of the Animas-La Plata Project, was filled in summer 2011, it has not yet been open to the public. That will likely change in another year.

“Lake Nighthorse is going to be one of the stars of our recreation,” says Bob Wolff, president of the Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District (ALPWCD), a managing organization that has taken the lead in creating a recreation plan for the reservoir.

Like other reservoirs in Colorado, which lure visitors to camp, bike, fish or boat, Lake Nighthorse could be a true asset to the community, not only for local enjoyment but as a tourist-draw. So, why the delay? Initially, Colorado Parks and Wildlife

annual user days that could result from Lake Nighthorse being opened to recreation *

intended to add the reservoir to its network of state parks. But budgets were cut. With the community anxious to gain access, the ALPWCD began working with the Bureau of Reclamation to open what Lujan refers to as a big, collaborative community planning process. Hundreds of Durango citizens were invited to make suggestions for the reservoir and a plan was drafted.

Currently undergoing review under the National Environmental Policy Act, the plan includes an entrance gate, an inspection station for aquatic nuisance species, a dock, a no-wake zone, a swim beach and, eventually, trails and a campground. Although the city of Durango still hopes that Colorado Parks and Wildlife will eventually take over, it is working to secure funding to actualize the plan and to take on the reservoir’s recreation management, says Cathy Metz, Durango’s director of parks and recreation.

“We’re going to get this thing off the ground,” says Wolff. “Next year, I’m confident it’s going to open to recreation at a small scale, and we’ll slowly build from there.” —Caitlin Coleman

money visitors to Lake Nighthorse would spend in La Plata County each year *

Courtesy Bureau of Reclamation

Lake Nighthorse

a good chunk of money into the community—$19 million annually, according to a 2006 study by RPI Consulting.

Smelter Rapid’s beefed-up design, engineered by Colorado’s own world-famous whitewater park designer Scott Shipley, will include many kayak play spots, drops and pools for experienced and beginner paddlers, furthering tourism and economic development as well as local enjoyment.

“It’s a really good thing, that play park,” says Tim Hunter, recreational representative on the Southwest Basin Roundtable. “We have kayakers going to the Olympics from our area on a regular basis. It’s a great asset to the community.” —Caitlin Coleman

Lake Nighthorse *Source: RPI Consulting market assessment

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Water is

Collaboration

Coming Together Around the Importance of Rivers A federal registry called the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System pays tribute to the nation’s free-flowing waterways for their, well, wild and scenic nature. The list grows as federal agencies charged with evaluating rivers on public land for their “outstandingly remarkable values” (ORVs) deem individual segments suitable and win community and legislative support. Of the 203 rivers now protected as such, Colorado has only one—the Cache la Poudre above Fort Collins, 76 miles of which made the grade in 1986.

In southwestern Colorado, the San Juan Citizens Alliance plays watchdog to local natural resources, including regional streams. When the San Juan National Forest surveyed its rivers during a 2007 update to its management plan, as stipulated by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, it identified about 20 stream segments in the 1.8 million-acre forest as preliminarily suitable for designation. The Alliance quickly recognized that to succeed in protecting the segments for the values noted, the forest—and any legislator willing to carry a bill to place a stream on the federal registry—would need to win public support. The Alliance approached the Southwestern Water Conservation District, which is charged with protecting regional water resources for human utilization, to initiate collaborative conversations about the best ways to protect these streams while striking a balance with future water development interests.

That sparked what became a series of river protection workgroups, focused on discussing the myriad values on a handful of the Forest Service’s preliminarily suitable stream segments, with emphasis on finding

protection mechanisms without the all-ornothing approach. “We’re avoiding tunnel vision about Wild and Scenic,” says the Alliance’s Wendy McDermott. “This is a much broader discussion.”

The fact that Wild and Scenic designation has historically come with a federal reserved water right, which would be junior, or subordinate, to existing developed rights, has those looking to protect water resources for future human consumption concerned. “We assume that all water remaining to be developed would be claimed by a federal reserved water right,” says Steve Fearn, who represents the Southwestern Water Conservation District on the workgroups’ steering committee. In addition, the designation could prohibit development of structures or the firming of conditional water rights if they would adversely impact the identified values.

The workgroups, the first of which convened in 2008, have drawn a broad spectrum of interested parties, from ranchers, landowners, conservationists and professional water experts to public lands officials, outfitters and water development interests.

In addition to the ORVs identified by the Forest Service, the groups have extended their consideration of values to include social and economic. Groups are operating by consensus, which does not mean everyone agrees with the outcome but that they can support it. “You have this incredible beauty and array of natural values,” says Marsha PorterNorton, who coordinates the whole project and facilitates three of the workgroups, “and a need to look at water planning and development for the future and then you throw in all the other values—melting that into something that can work for all the people…it’s an art and a science, it doesn’t just happen.”

In 2013, a regional discussion, led by the steering committee, will evaluate the five workgroups’ proposals and attempt to craft a regional approach to protecting natural values while allowing water development to continue. “Participants may decide to support Wild and Scenic on one river and release suitability on another,” says McDermott, who is also on the steering committee.

According to forest supervisor Mark Stiles, the groups’ recommendations will inform decision-making, but in the end, it will be up to the Forest Service to determine whether segments will remain suitable for designation. Suitable segments will receive protective management to ensure they retain the characteristics that won them that status until Congress designates a segment Wild and Scenic or the Forest Service conducts its next update. The last revision was in 1983. —Jayla Poppleton

Upper Animas River

Jeff Titus

Counties: La Plata and San Juan Participants: 25 to 35 Conversation: In progress since June 2011 USFS suitable segments: 43.25 miles of Animas and tributaries above Bakers Bridge ORVs: Recreation (narrow gauge railroad between Durango and Silverton draws 146,000 visitors annually to see spectacular scenery, highest commercial put-ins in state for extreme class V commercial whitewater trips), rare iron fens (plant community), San Juan Scenic Byway along Mineral Creek Additional values identified: heritage tourism, mining, grazing, source water for Durango, Silverton and vicinity, recreation (motorized and quiet use), and the ability to make a living in the community Outcome: Not yet concluded The Animas River near its confluence with Cascade Creek between Durango and Silverton Find additional details, updates and schedules for ongoing workgroup meetings at http://ocs.fortlewis.edu/riverprotection/.

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yourwatercolorado.org

Hermosa Creek

Counties: La Plata and San Juan Participants: 35 Conversation: Monthly from April 2008 to January 2010 USFS suitable segments: 62.4 miles of the creek and its tributaries ORVs: recreational use (heavy because of proximity to Durango), Colorado Cutthroat conservation use Additional values identified: Economic (grazing, logging, hunting, outfitting), remoteness, large swath of contingent public land, source water protection for downstream communities including Durango, recreation (hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, ATV use and more) Outcome: Recommendation to pass federal legislation creating a special management area of 150,000 acres congruent with the entire Hermosa Creek watershed, within which 50,000 acres would be designated wilderness. The entire SMA would be withdrawn from mineral leasing with two exceptions to allow potential future operations on approximately 1,400 acres.

Piedra River—Middle and East Forks

Counties: Archuleta, Hinsdale and Mineral Participants: 20 to 25 Conversation: In progress since October 2011 USFS suitable segments: 50.12 miles on three segments of the river upstream of Highway 160 ORVs: Class IV and V whitewater through box canyons, incredible waterfalls, geology, genetically pure cutthroat trout Additional values identified: Grazing, recreation, heritage tourism, high water quality, wild trout fishery, water for Southern Ute Indian Tribe Outcome: Not yet concluded

Vallecito Creek/Pine River

Counties: La Plata, San Juan and Hinsdale Participants: 10 or less Conversation: Monthly from June 2010 to June 2011 USFS suitable segments: 54.17 miles of the Pine River and six tributaries (which have been considered suitable since 1983) ORVs: Spectacular scenery including canyons and waterfalls, extreme kayaking through nationally recognized drops Additional values identified: Outfitting, non-motorized recreation, water for downstream communities of Bayfield and Ignacio, key access point to vast Weminuche Wilderness Outcome: Most think Wild and Scenic might be redundant to current wilderness protection but recommend USFS maintain suitability status of Upper Pine River.

San Juan—East and West Forks

Counties: Archuleta, Hinsdale and Mineral Participants: 25 Conversation: Monthly from February 2010 to May 2011 USFS suitable segments: West Fork suitable, East Fork eligible (one step before suitable) ORVs: Highly representative and accessible geology, scenic waterfalls, nesting habitat for black swift (a species of concern) Additional values identified: Native fish including genetically pure cutthroat, recreation, hunting, grazing, agriculture, municipal water supplies, private land and property rights Outcome: Suggest removing Wild and Scenic suitability on private segments, with public segments referred to regional discussion; creative ideas to protect geology on private segments, including a local advisory council or zoning overlay

Headwaters | Summer 2012

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Courtesy Colorado Water Trust

Water is Renewal

The San Miguel River gets a facelift below the Colorado Cooperative Company dam.

Salvaging Streamflows on the San Miguel For more than 40 years, the Colorado Cooperative Company’s dam diverted much, if not all, of the San Miguel River near Naturita for irrigation. Any diverted water not used by irrigators was returned to the riverbed 1,500 feet downstream. During dry periods, the 1,500foot stretch below the concrete dam ran completely dry, severing the ecosystem along one of Colorado’s last free-flowing rivers. During periods of higher flow, a large drop between the dam and the river channel created a dangerous hydraulic that caused safety issues for boaters and prevented fish passage.

Complementing its better-known work securing water rights for instream flows, the nonprofit Colorado Water Trust (CWT) led the charge to restore both streamflows and boat-

er safety to the river while maintaining agricultural diversions. Together with partners that included the Colorado Cooperative Company, the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife (CPW), The Nature Conservancy and the Bureau of Reclamation, CWT hired engineering firm FlyWater to design a project. In the end, partners left the dam intact but built a fish ladder in the river bed—creating a berm and series of pools to gently connect the diversion structure with the river below.

Originally envisioned by the San Miguel Watershed Coalition nearly a decade ago, a plan for the project wasn’t solidified until 2009, after CWT was left the reins. It was a lengthy and frustrating process, according to George Glasier of the Colorado Coop-

erative Company. Within a year of the plan’s approval, however, CWT raised more than $250,000 in needed funds—from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the Fishing is Fun arm of CPW, the Walton Family Foundation, the Southwestern Water Conservation District and the Telluride Foundation—and by November 2011, project partners were sitting on the riverbank sharing thoughts on their recently-completed project. “They were, I think, surprised and pleased that folks of different interests could get together and figure out a solution,” says Amy Beatie, executive director of CWT. “It wasn’t crucial to us,” Glasier says. “We did this basically for the good of the river and for fish and boaters.” —Caitlin Coleman

Imagine acres of penstemon, Forest Service, fedsoft blue grama, Mexican red eral agencies obligated to use native hat, mutton grass or bottlebrush squirreltail—native plants. plant materials wherever possible. Henes’ That’s what Southwest Seed propagates near the town of company is the only Dolores in Montezuma County. native seed producer in the area.

The company, run by Walter Henes and founded about 35 The use of native vegetation in reclayears ago by his father, grows 700 acres of 40 different plant mation projects has species native to southwestern evolved over time, Colorado and sells the seed says Henes. In the Penstemon 1960s, it didn’t matto be planted on lands cleared ter what you planted by wildfire, natural gas pads, pipelines and other spaces in need of rec- as long as you planted something; the use lamation. Some big customers include the of natives was stressed in the 1990s. ToBureau of Land Management and the U.S. day, more reclamation projects are using lo16

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cal ecotypes. “If you disturb the ground in Denver, you don’t want to get a native grass grown in Montana, you want something grown maybe 100 miles outside of Denver,” Henes says.

Not only does native vegetation protect water quality, reduce erosion, maintain soil health, displace invasive species and feed wildlife, but it is more resilient than non-native vegetation and uses less water—in fact, land managers don’t typically irrigate these native reclamation projects at all.

“Our ecosystems are basically a puzzle,” says Cara MacMillan, an ecologist with the BLM’s Tres Rios field office, “and native plants are an important puzzle piece; they help keep everything together.”

—Caitlin Coleman

yourwatercolorado.org

Robby Henes

Sow Native: Seeds for the Southwest

Long Road for the Lower Rio Blanco Acclaimed anthropologist Margaret Mead once remarked, “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” A group of landowners along the lower Rio Blanco in Archuleta County embodied Mead’s spirit as they diligently sought restoration of the dying river in their backyards over two decades.

Tapped along with two other tributaries to the San Juan, the Rio Blanco lost 70 percent of its average annual flows to the San JuanChama Project, which first transported water destined for New Mexico across the Continental Divide in 1971. Almost immediately, impacts to the river’s natural hydrology became evident—the riverbed grew wider and shallower, water temperature escalated, riverbanks eroded, and sediments accumulated.

Organized under the Lower Blanco Property Owners Association, landowners sought out local, state and federal authorities for help. Their voices were heard, and they received cooperation from the San Juan Water Conservancy District, Colorado Water Conservation Board and a host of other entities to revive the oncevibrant river.

Dave Rosgen, renowned hydrologist and owner of Fort Collinsbased Wildland Hydrology, designed the project’s master plan with an emphasis on using natural materials. Thousands of cubic feet of locally-derived rock were strategically placed to “build a channel within a channel,” says Rosgen. The new, deeper and narrower channel keeps water moving faster so it doesn’t clog up with sediment. Native plants were used to stabilize banks and provide shade.

Work on 10 miles of the lower Rio Blanco concluded in 2010, and the fish have returned.

“This project was accomplished by a grassroots effort of local homeowners willing to roll up their sleeves and see the project through,” says Val Valentine, who served as water commissioner for the upper San Juan Basin from 1988 to 2007. “Their resolve was the cattle prod that kept the whole thing going.” —Jayla Poppleton

Years it took to restore the lower Rio Blanco

1.32

million

Dollars invested in restoration

209

9.48

Miles of stream restored

21

Tens of Thousands

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Cattle ranches between Blanco Diversion Tunnel and the confluence of the Rio Blanco and the San Juan River in the 1950s

Property owners living on sub-divided ranchettes along same stretch during restoration period

hours contributed by volunteers

Pick up a copy of Val Valentine’s A River Once More to learn more about the lower Rio Blanco restoration project. He wrote it in 2011 as a reference for future projects and to recognize the multitude of people involved. It is available for Kindle on Amazon or by contacting the Lower Blanco Property Owners Association at P.O. Box 763, Pagosa Springs, CO 81147.

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Diverse, distanced but far from desolate

C

By Jerd Smith

Whalen Photography

Colorado’s far-flung southwestern corner has endured for centuries thanks to the careful vigilance of an array of people, from the ancients of Mesa Verde, to the miners and farmers who flocked to its steep river canyons and lush valleys in the 1870s, to the high-tech lone eagles and Front Range expatriates who have arrived in modern times.

Here, where three major rivers, the Dolores, San Miguel and San Juan, shape the largely rural landscape, people are comparatively few—roughly 110,000 spread across 10 counties. The region is so sparsely populated that Durango, with about 16,900 people, is considered a big town, and such hamlets as Ophir, population 200, and Silverton, roughly 600, are more the norm.

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Headwaters | Summer 2012

Malcolm Major

“What distinguishes this basin is our remoteness from the Front Range,” says April Montgomery, who since 2002 has served on the board of the Southwestern Water Conservation District, a water agency charged with overseeing water development and conservation within the region.

It is this geographic distance and the demanding mountain passes in-between that have helped the region maintain its rich cultural diversity. According to Montgomery, who also helps oversee statewide water policy from the boardroom of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, “The people of the southwest are as independent and rugged as the landscape.”

Talk to enough of southwestern Colorado’s water leaders and that independent spirit becomes clear. Each of the region’s smaller river basins has its own heritage, its own concerns, and its own approach to solving water problems, from the uranium miners and farmers of Nucla and Naturita, to the über-wealthy, second-home owners in Telluride and Pagosa Springs.

Despite their differences, the many river basins in the region are cooperating to address problems that transcend individual watersheds, including water quality and the need to make their water supplies accommodate a vast range of interests—from growing communities to the state’s only two remaining Indian tribes, from farmers and ranchers to fisherman and rafting outfitters, from miners to endangered fish.

April Montgomery

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COLORADO’S Southwest Basin

Map by James Dietrich

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Jeremy Wade Shockley

Chuck Wanner

Economy in Flux Chuck Wanner is among the wave of Front Range expatriates who have settled in southwestern Colorado. He left Fort Collins in 2002 after serving on the town’s city council for nearly eight years. Wanner also helped lead the effort to designate Colorado’s first—and to this day, only—Wild and Scenic River segments on the Cache la Poudre River in Larimer County. Even now, 10 years after moving to rural La Plata County, outside Durango, Wanner is struck by the diversity of the region he now calls home— its cultural richness and its environmental glamour, from the 500,000-acre Weminuche Wilderness Area to the slamming, frothy flows of the San Miguel River where it races through Norwood Canyon.

“A lot of people live here because they want to live here, and if they have to push coffee to live here, then they do it,” says Wanner, who himself recently took a post at the local five rivers chapter of Trout Unlimited. Many of the region’s newcomers, however, don’t have to work. Like other areas of the larger American Southwest, southwestern Colorado is home to a growing number of retirees. The people who find their way to this isolated region roughly 400 miles southwest of Denver bring with them a desire to escape the cacophony of the Front Range and to hike, bike and ski some of the West’s most unforgiving terrain.

If the ancient Anasazi people were among the first to arrive 3,500 years ago, miners continued the trend, bringing thousands to prospect for Silverton’s precious metals in the 1870s. Soon they would discover other mining lodes in Telluride, Rico and elsewhere. The region’s hard-won mining wealth also helped establish roads, railroads, towns and an agricultural economy that would outlast many of the mines.

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Rick Randolph

Jeremy Wade Shockley

Steve Fearn (left) helped found the Animas River Stakeholders Group, which cleans up after old mines, protecting waterways and keeping the region from being designated a federal Superfund site. Barlow Creek Reservoir (right) sits upstream of Rico, Colo., a former silver-mining community that may have a molybdemum mine in its future.

Today, agriculture—raising cattle, hay, pinto beans, sunflower seeds and more— is a mainstay of the economy, along with a growing tourism industry. Several ski resorts, mineral hot springs, plus rafting and kayaking on rivers like the Animas, Piedra and Dolores, draw people from across the state and the nation. Heritage tourists bound for abandoned mining or archaeological sites also find there’s much to see.

The legacy of mining also continues, however, in some not-so endearing ways. So profound and complex are the heavy metals issues that scar many of the rivers here that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency once prepared to designate the whole upper San Juan County, wherein Silverton lies, a Superfund site.

“What was done back then [by miners] was done within the law, but it left us with a legacy of draining mines and mine dumps that contribute metals to the stream and that impact water quality,” says Steve Fearn, a mining engineer who has served on the Southwestern Water Conservation District board for 15 years. Fearn also helped found the Animas River Stakeholders Group, a communitybased effort to improve water quality related to historical mining. The collaborative effort has brought mining companies, local residents, environmentalists and government agencies to the same table for nearly two decades. Thanks to their efforts, water quality has begun to improve, fish populations in some areas are showing signs of health, and Superfund listing has been averted. “We have Superfund sites are abandoned or uncontrolled places containing hazardous waste that are taken on by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup. Colorado currently has 18 active sites being remediated in order to protect water resources, ecosystems and people.

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some encouraging results,” Fearn says, “and we also have a ways to go.”

Despite the challenges from the past, Fearn points to current interest in restarting many of the old mines. “At today’s metal prices, the San Juan Mountains contain significant resources of economically minable minerals,” he says. “Fortunately, future mining will be conducted in a way that reflects our new values for the environment and protection and improvement of water quality.”

Sharing the Wealth In Durango, about 48 miles southwest of Silverton, John Porter has a rancher’s vision of the landscape, having grown up on a spread outside Cortez. Porter, president of the Southwestern Water Conservation District, has watched the region grow even as it has struggled to manage its diverse rivers and the sometimes conflicting goals of people who live along their banks.

Porter credits the state-funded regional water roundtables with helping communities in the region come together to negotiate mutually acceptable ways to deal with their differences over water. The Southwest Basin Roundtable is one of nine across the state created by the passage of the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act in 2005.

As a man with close ties to the farms in the region, Porter wants to ensure there is adequate water in the future to sustain local agriculture. Though most expect the number of irrigated acres to shrink slightly in coming years as some land is sold for development, agriculture will remain a vital part of the economic engine here. Along with the need to protect water for agriculture, the region must also ensure that its rivers deliver enough water to meet the needs of endangered fish, as well as peo-

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ple who live outside its boundaries.

Two of the region’s largest rivers, the Dolores and San Miguel, meet and cross the state line into Utah to the west, eventually feeding into the Colorado River, while the remaining rivers in the region flow primarily south into New Mexico, where they join the San Juan and also, ultimately, supply the Colorado. As a result, four interstate water compacts—two governing flows from the Colorado River drainage, one governing the Animas-La Plata Project, and one governing the La Plata River at the New Mexico border—must be administered here, along with the powerful senior water rights controlled by two Ute Indian tribes.

Porter and other water officials say New Mexico is the region’s largest concern, because its southern neighbor relies exclusively on the San Juan River to satisfy its water entitlement under the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948. That compact divides the water allotted to the upper Colorado River Basin states—Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah— under the overarching Colorado River Compact of 1922, giving New Mexico 11.2 percent of the four states’ share. “There is only one place they can get that water and it’s out of the San Juan,” Porter explains. “New Mexico, in our view, has already over-appropriated its 11.2 percent, so that’s the one we watch the closest. Yet we cooperate with New Mexico a lot.”

Not only are the rivers in the southern part of the region subject to water supply limitations related to the compacts, but their flows are crucial to the San Juan River Recovery Implementation Program, a coordinated effort to optimize conditions on the San Juan River and its tributaries for the successful recovery of two endangered fish species—the Colorado pikeminnow and ra-

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Gunnar Conrad

Jeremy Wade Shockley

John Porter (right) retired from managing operations at McPhee Reservoir (above) for the Dolores Water Conservancy District in 2002 but continues to participate in local water planning efforts.

zorback sucker. The recovery program, yet another example of regional cooperation, protects water users’ ability to continue to divert water and therefore plays into many water management decisions.

Forward Thinking Despite its relatively small population and the multiple rivers that thread its landscapes, southwestern Colorado is looking to guard its water future. Most people here aren’t worried about a major water grab from the Front Range, and, thanks to a number of existing storage projects sprinkled across the area, most believe the region won’t need major new reservoirs to serve its cities and farmers.

Still, the area will see spectacular growth in coming years, reaching about 224,000 people by 2050 from the current level of 110,000, assuming medium-range economic and population growth forecasts. Much of this growth, according to a Colorado Water Conservation Board report known as the Statewide Water Supply Initiative 2010, will come from tourism, with agriculture continuing to hold its own. Even assuming the region benefits from ongoing conservation efforts, by 2050 the growing population will demand double the amount of water it uses today.

With the long-awaited Animas-La Plata Project finally built, those with interests in the project can expect to receive a significant, new source of water. Though additional storage projects on the scale of the Animas-La Plata aren’t foreseen, Long Hollow Reservoir, with about 5,400 acre feet of storage, is being built after more than 20 years of planning to help ensure Colorado can meet its obligations to New Mexico on the La Plata River. In addition, because numerous small communities are perennially water-short, local water entities with the state’s support have been working to build small, rural water distribution sys-

tems in such regions as Hesperus, eastern La Plata County and western Archuleta County.

Dry Gulch Reservoir near Pagosa Springs is also in the planning stages. Proposed by the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District and the San Juan Water Conservancy District, the project has caused controversy within the basin, with environmental groups such as Trout Unlimited battling successfully to shrink the reservoir’s size—from 35,000 acre feet as originally proposed to an agreed-upon maximum of 11,000 acre feet—and the water districts pushing to build the project to ensure there is adequate water for future growth. Even if all goes as planned, the earliest construction start-date would be in 2020.

In addition to growth, another factor that may affect future water supply is climate change—the region has been identified as being at high risk for increasingly frequent drought and potential reductions in snowfall and streamflows. The Colorado Water Conservation Board, in fact, is doing a study to see what the impacts on skiing, fishing and rafting may be—given their importance to the local economy—and how to help mitigate those risks. Despite such concerns, Wanner, an at-large member of the Southwest Basin Roundtable, is one of several regional experts who believe this beautiful region will escape the dramatic water shortages projected for the Front Range in the face of climate change and population growth.

Still, some Front Range pain may be felt here. The state is planning to purchase water being stored in the Animas-La Plata Project, in part to help satisfy any demands by Nevada, Arizona and California, in the event climate-induced water shortage causes those states to call for water Colorado uses from the Colorado River and its tributaries. The 1922 Colorado River Compact stipulates that 75 Headwaters | Summer 2012

million acre feet of water on a 10-year running average must pass the Lee Ferry gauge below Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona to reach the lower basin. Front Range utilities may be able to lease water in the Animas-La Plata Project, assuming local water owners agree, in order to release that water downstream to help satisfy the lower basin. This would enable cities such as Denver and Colorado Springs to continue exercising their water rights in the headwaters of the Upper Colorado River.

Issues related to the Colorado River Compact have served to tie this isolated region to the broader state discussion about future water supply. Now, Montgomery, the first woman and one of the youngest ever appointed to the Southwestern Water Conservation District board, believes southwestern Colorado could be a proving ground for inventive water management tools, such as water banks and new programs for protecting and managing instream flows to keep water in rivers, that could also be applied elsewhere in the state.

“There are a lot of traditions here, water traditions that people don’t want to see change too fast. There is a real comfort and acceptance of agricultural lifestyles,” she says.

“Even the ‘newcomers’ don’t want to see agriculture go away. As farms are sold off and water rights are sold off there is a danger of that. So all of us involved in water policy are thinking about what the alternatives might be.

And because we’re a smaller community and we have less development, we’re the perfect place to try some things out.” q Learn more about the activities of the Southwest Basin Roundtable, attend a meeting, and share your ideas or concerns at http://cwcb. state.co.us/water-management/basin-roundtables/Pages/ SouthwestBasinRoundtable.aspx or by contacting the roundtable’s chair Mike Preston at mpreston@frontier.net.

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For Colorado’s two Indian tribes,

the long-awaited promise of water, fulfilled at last, brings hope for continued economic growth

Gunnar Conrad

By Gail Binkly

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Manuel Heart

Manuel Heart remembers the days before the Dolores Project brought drinking water to the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation in far southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico. “We had a water truck going to Cortez and filling up two, three, four times a day. It would go around the community, and whoever had their water jugs out would get them filled up,” recalls Heart, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute tribal council who has served as tribal chairman, vice chair, treasurer and secretary. “It was like a Third World country. We had electricity but no plumbing. A lot of people would go to Cortez to do laundry or even take showers.”

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Jeremy Wade Shockley/The Southern Ute Drum (4)

Ute Water

The promise of water (left to right): Dedicating Lake Nighthorse, the Southern Ute Cultural Center, irrigation water flowing through the reservation.

Even 20 years ago, the 910-squaremile reservation south of Cortez had little commercial activity. There were two small farms plus a sewing factory and a pottery factory. Tourists driving past the turnoff to the reservation on Highway 160/491 saw mainly clumps of grass and rabbitbrush.

But when the Dolores Project brought water to the Ute Mountain Utes in 1994, the reservation blossomed like the desert after a spring rain. Today it is home to a thriving casino and restaurant, a 90room hotel, a truck stop/travel center, an RV park and a 7,700-acre farm. The Ute Mountain Utes are the largest employer in Montezuma County, providing some 1,580 jobs. Their Weeminuche Construction

Authority is a major firm in the area and helped build the 47-mile canal to bring Dolores Project water to the reservation from Cortez.

“It did really boost the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe,” says Heart. “Now we have treated, running water all the way from the Cortez treatment plant.”

And with the completion of the $513 million Animas-La Plata Project near Durango—also built by the Weeminuche Construction Authority—the Ute Mountain Utes and the Southern Utes adjoining them on the east have each gained an additional 33,050 acre feet of the West’s most precious resource. But it was a long and tortuous path to obtaining that water.

A Tribal Right Around 1300 A.D., shortly after the Ancestral Puebloans had left the Four Corners area and scattered to regions farther south, the native peoples now known as the Utes were a loose confederation of 13 huntergatherer bands roaming some 130,000 square miles of Colorado, eastern Utah and northern New Mexico. When the Spanish arrived with their horses in the late 1500s, the Utes swiftly became master horsemen and achieved even greater dominion over the region through their new mobility. But with the inexorable expansion of white settlers into the West, the Utes were eventually forced to give up the largest and best portions of their territory and were squeezed onto three

The Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s Lake Capote is open to the public for recreation. Here, tribal members participate in a canoe race on the lake.

Headwaters | Summer 2012

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Gunnar Conrad

Jeremy Wade Shockley/The Southern Ute Drum (2)

The Southern Utes put the final touches on the Southern Ute Cultural Center in Ignacio (top) and stock trout at Lake Capote Recreation Area (above).

small reservations, one in northeastern Utah. The two reservations within Colorado, the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute, were both arid and apparently barren, although both turned out to contain energy resources including coal, oil and gas.

The Southern Utes acquired water rights on the Pine, one of eight rivers snaking across their reservation, in the 1930s, and got more water when Lemon Reservoir was built on the Florida River in the 1960s. The Ute Mountain Utes, however, were left high and dry. Even when the Jackson Gulch Project was built in the 1940s to capture flows on the Mancos River, which bisects the reservation, the tribe received no benefit from the project.

Meanwhile, dams were being built across the West to supply water for farmers and growing municipalities. Southwestern Colorado had plans for two major projects, one on the Dolores River in Montezuma County and another on the Animas and La Plata rivers in La Plata County. Both were authorized in the 1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act. However, in the 1970s the tide began to turn against large dam proposals. In 1977, both the Dolores and Animas-La Plata projects were put on what became known as the “Carter hit list,” a list of Western water projects that President Jimmy Carter intended to nix. What ultimately revived both was the prospect of settling the Colorado Utes’ water rights claims.

The rights of American Indian nations to water are rooted in the landmark 1908 Winters v.

United States case, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the creation of reservations included an implicit right to enough water for tribes to fulfill the “purpose” of the reservation, which generally included agriculture. Even more shocking to white settlers at the time, the court said Indian water rights dated back to the establishment of either a treaty or reservation—1868 in the case of both Colorado Ute reservations—and could not be lost through non-use.

In Arizona v. California in 1963, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Winters and clarified that tribes need enough water “to satisfy the future, as well as the present, needs of the Indian reservations.” Such rulings had the potential to undermine the foundation on which nonIndian farms, ranches and municipalities had been built throughout the country.

“Tribes were there first and that’s what the law recognizes,” says attorney John Echohawk, executive director and co-founder of the Native American Rights Fund, a nonprofit based in Boulder, Colo., that provides legal help for native tribes, organizations or individuals in significant cases. NARF represented the Utes early in their water litigation; after settlement negotiations began, other counsel took over.

Most tribes have very senior rights, “so when water is short they will get their water before anyone else,” says Echohawk. “That’s why it’s really important for those rights to be quantified.” If the Southern Utes chose to exercise water rights with a priority date of 1868, they could have usurped a significant amount from the cities of Durango and Silverton, as well as irrigators and virtually all users in the Animas Valley. For the Ute Mountain Utes, an 1868 priority date would have made them senior to almost every other user in the Mancos Valley.

As more tribes began pressing for the water to which they were legally entitled, governments, planners and irrigators nationwide felt pressure to resolve those claims outside of court. Such negotiations frequently result in compromises in which cash-poor tribes accept lesser amounts of water and later priority dates in return for help building reservoirs and pipelines to turn what is known as “paper water”—water rights established only on paper— into actual “wet water” available for use.

The negotiating process is slow and arduous. Just 29 tribal water rights settlements have been approved nationwide, Echohawk says, out of more than 500 tribes. When NARF was formed 42 years ago, no settlements had been reached. “Water is a very valuable resource, so the process gets pretty contentious, but over the years people have generally seen that litigation is not the way to go,” says Echohawk. “The states have come to recognize that it is really important for tribes to become part of the water planning process, instead of having this uncertainty out there.”

While it may be difficult for the general public to understand how Indian nations such as the Colorado Utes, whose combined population is less than 4,000, can wield such power over water, both the need for and right to that substance are clear, says Echohawk. “Tribes generally have the right to sufficient water for their present and future uses. That’s one of the things that gets defined in the litigation or the settlement negotiations.” Water can fulfill a multitude of tribal purposes, from economic development to restoring salmon runs. “It can be valuable for spiritual purposes as well,” says Echohawk.

“It’s pretty simple,” agrees Ray Ramirez, grant writer and editor for NARF. “You need water to survive, to live. Without it there is just nothing you can do. When tribes set out to adjudicate their water rights, they aren’t greedy. They try to make sure everyone gets their fair share. It’s not like they win a water rights case and then cut off water rights to everyone else. That’s never the case.”

Michael Vicenti is taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch Enterprise, its 109 center pivot sprinklers and its water supply.

A New Era of Opportunity With the Dolores and Animas-La Plata projects facing extinction and concern about tribal rights worrying non-Indian water users, residents of southwestern Colorado realized the projects might move forward if they offered an opportunity to settle the Utes’ claims. In 1977, then-Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus recommended that Carter reconsider the Dolores Project, stating that the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe had “been the victims of a long series of broken promises and failed expectations in their water development plans” and were entitled to “prompt water delivery from the project.” Carter ultimately removed it from his hit list.

Negotiations to resolve the Colorado Utes’ claims began in earnest in the early 1980s among the two tribes, water conservancy districts and the state. Meanwhile, construction began on the first stages of the Dolores Project’s McPhee Reservoir even as the tribes, irrigators and state officials lobbied Congress for appropriations to complete the project.

By 1986, the Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Settlement had been agreed to by all parties. It was ratified by Congress in 1988, settling the tribes’ outstanding reserved water rights on the Mancos, Animas and La Plata rivers, contingent upon the building of the Animas-La Plata Project and the completion of the Dolores Project.

McPhee Reservoir filled in 1986, and in 1994, municipal and industrial water flowed to the Ute Mountain Ute reservation and its capital, Towaoc. The Dolores Project also provided water for the communities of Cortez and Dove Creek and irrigation water for much of Montezuma and Dolores counties.

The opening of the Ute Mountain Casino on Highway 160/491 provided a draw for tourists and jobs for locals. Today, 83 percent of the casino’s 400 employees are Native American. Such development would not have been possible without the project’s delivery of potable water.

Dolores Project water also supported the creation of the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch Enterprise, a 7,700-acre spread supporting alfalfa, corn, wheat and sunflowers. The farm is irrigated with 24,000 acre feet of tribal water from the project and another 4,000 acre feet leased annually from the Dolores Water Conservancy District. There is also a 700-head cow-and-calf operation.

The farm is one of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s shining achievements. In 2010 and 2011, it placed third nationwide—and first in the state—in a division of the National Corn Growers Association’s corn-yield contest. It placed second nationwide in 2003 as well. The enterprise, wholly owned by the tribe but operated as a separate business, has 18 full-time employees, 10 of them tribal members, plus up to seven seasonal people.

Thirty-one-year-old Michael Vicenti is the type of worker the enterprise hopes to curry. A senior at Colorado State University pursuing dual degrees in agronomy and agribusiness, the Towaoc native now shifts between school and the farm, where he is rotating through the different departments in order to learn the entire operation and ultimately move into management. “To me, the farm and ranch is another thing we’re proud of,” Vicenti says as he shows off the sophisticated computer system used to monitor irrigation on the farm. “We’re being recognized nationally.”

As important as the Dolores Project proved to the Ute Mountain Utes, it left unsatisfied Headwaters | Summer 2012

…then-Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus recommended that Carter reconsider the Dolores Project, stating that the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe had “been the victims of a long series of broken promises and failed expectations in their water development plans” and were entitled to “prompt water delivery from the project.”

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Learn more about Ute history and culture by booking a guided tour of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park: www. utemountainute.com/tribalpark.

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Jeremy Wade Shockley

Jeremy Wade Shockley/The Southern Ute Drum (2) Gunnar Conrad

Former U.S. Senator Ben “Nighthorse” Campbell visits his namesake reservoir (top). Bruce Whitehead (above) is not only a past state senator, but was formerly the division engineer for southwestern Colorado’s Water Division 7 and is now executive director of both the Southwestern Water Conservation District and the Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District.

the outstanding claims of both Colorado Ute tribes on the Animas and La Plata rivers. (The Southern Utes had no claims on the Dolores.) As envisioned in the 1980s, the Animas-La Plata Project was to provide both irrigation and municipal and industrial water to the tribes and non-Indian entities. However, environmental and fiscal concerns resulted in the project being downsized and the irrigation component being removed. In 2007, after numerous delays, the project’s Ridges Basin Dam was completed. Lake Nighthorse filled in 2011.

While the Ute Mountain Utes had to wait for the Dolores Project before their reservation could start to flourish, the Southern Utes already had a robust and diverse economy based on extensive coalbed methane production, gaming, tourism, sand and gravel development, and numerous investments in off-reservation real estate and energy. Reputed to be the most prosperous Indian tribe in the country, the Southern Utes are La Plata County’s largest employer. Ignacio, the tribe’s capital, is home to the Sky Ute Casino and Resort and the new Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum.

Although the Southern Ute Indian Tribe generally does not lack water for its present needs, it sees its rights in the Animas-La Plata Project as security for the future. Ute leaders are reluctant to talk about potential uses for the water, but options are numerous. Tribal decrees and state laws allow the tribes to use Animas-La Plata Project water on their reservations—and also off-reservation under certain conditions—but also impose limitations on their ability to sell or lease it to other entities. Out-of-state uses are basically off the table for now because they are not consistent with current state law.

“Members want opportunities to pursue any range of jobs, whether as oil and gas workers, farmers, or even fishing guides,” says Chuck Lawler, head of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s water resources division. “They want the water for economic development and probably some level of environmental enhancement.”

There are still questions about how water from Lake Nighthorse will be delivered to the reservations because no pipelines were included in the downsized project. Water can be released down Basin Creek into the Animas to be picked up by the Southern Utes and other project users, but getting it to the Ute Mountain Utes for uses in Colorado will be more difficult. Still, the tribes are pleased to have their claims resolved and the reservoirs finally in place after decades of effort.

“We had some strong leaders that really had vision about getting water based on the 1868 rights,” says Heart of the Ute Mountain Utes. “But they couldn’t do it by themselves, so they had to find ways to partner with water conservancy districts to make it a win-win for everyone.”

Water district officials say the completion of the Dolores and Animas-La Plata projects has benefited both tribes and non-Indian users. “It took years but it was time and money well spent,” agrees Bruce Whitehead, executive director of the Southwestern Water Conservation District, which was involved in the settlement. “This resolved the tribal claims without totally upsetting the water system we have now, and the Utes got wet water. I do think this worked out for the benefit of all.”

Lawler says the settlements set the tone for continued cooperation among the Utes and non-Indian water users. “Unlike a lot of places in Indian country, both of the [Colorado] Ute tribes have been very good about trying to work with the state,” he says.

The tribes are continuing to work with other entities in a number of efforts. When the Animas-La Plata Project was downsized, each tribe received a $20 million tribal resource fund as compensation for the water they gave up in the downsizing. Three-quarters of the funds must be used to “enhance, restore, and utilize the tribes’ natural resources in partnership with adjacent non-Indian communities or entities in the area,” the legislation stipulates.

The Utes used some of those monies to help build an intake structure on the upper end of Lake Nighthorse for future uses by the tribes, as well as the La Plata West Water Authority, which also gave funding, and potentially other entities by agreement. The structure, which was also funded by the Southwest Basin Roundtable and Colorado Water Conservation Board, is also an essential first step in getting water to the eastern side of the Ute Mountain Ute reservation.

The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe also contributed $3 million from its resource fund toward the $22.5 million cost of Long Hollow Reservoir, a 5,400 acre-foot reservoir being constructed on a tributary of the La Plata River. The project is designed to enable Colorado to meet its obligations to New Mexico under the La Plata River Compact but will also aid non-Indian irrigators in southwestern La Plata County. The Ute Mountain Utes hope to use some storage in the reservoir as well.

The Southern Utes have spent some of their fund on cooperative ecological projects with the city of Durango, mitigating wetlands and protecting natural corridors. And both tribes will be involved, along with several other entities, in the association that will oversee operations of the Animas-La Plata Project.

Whitehead sees numerous opportunities for additional mutually-beneficial projects in the future. Lawler agrees: “Here, there’s a history of cooperation. I think we sort of set the example for how you can have different interests but still try to work together.” q

Cultivating Optimism Southwestern Colorado’s Food Future

By Jesse James McTigue

Scott and Joe Mahaffey

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Courtesy Stone Free Farm

Scott Mahaffey represents a diminishing demographic; he’s a third-generation farmer in southwestern Colorado’s Montezuma County. Much has changed in agriculture since his father Joe farmed the family land, and then again, much has stayed the same.

Back in Joe’s day, it was common for grown children to take over the family farm and land was affordable. Joe and his two brothers assumed ownership of a 320-acre farm from their father, later expanding to 2,200 acres. They were dryland farmers, producing beans, wheat and hay on unirrigated land.

That changed 25 years ago when the Dolores Project, an irrigation initiative including the creation of a reservoir, canal system and pumps, gave the Mahaffey farm access to water.

Joe and his brothers divvied up the family land—Joe negotiated a 1,000-acre parcel—and on July 13, 1987, they turned on the spigots. Joe’s yields went from two tons of alfalfa per acre to five tons, 300 pounds of beans per acre to 2,000 pounds.

Today, Scott farms his father’s 1,000-acre parcel, still producing alfalfa, beans and wheat, citing the alfalfa, sold mostly as dairy hay, as the most profitable crop. With irrigation plus conservation farming methods, Scott can more consistently rely on greater yields.

Colorado is home to 10.5 million total cropland acres of which 2.8 are irrigated, leaving 7.7 million acres that produce crops using dryland farming techniques.

Source: Colorado Water Institute

Rosie Carter, co-owner of Stone Free Farm, harvests a crop of lettuce.

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Conservation districts are organized locally to promote sustainable land management practices and assist farmers and landowners. Contact your local conservation district to ask a question or solicit assistance.

Scan this code with your smart phone or other device to access the National Association of Conservation Districts locator at www.nacdnet.org/ about/districts/locate/.

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Jeremy Wade Shockley (2)

“I rotate my crops according to what that ground needs to stay healthy and produce what it can,” Mahaffey says. “If beans have a high price one year, I can’t just plant a bunch of beans because of the high price.

I have to put in the ground what it needs to stay fertile for years and years to come.”

Montezuma County is known for its dryland bean production—a commodity the county has historically, and currently, produced in the top 1 percent nationally. At present, the region’s most profitable export crop is dairy hay, or alfalfa, which is typically exported to farms in Texas. Beef cattle, lambs and hay are also staples of regional farms and ranches.

The Mahaffeys and other like-minded growers may have adopted conservation methods, but according to Judy Garrigues, district manager for the Dolores Conservation District, most commodity crop farmers still use traditional farming methods that are hard on the land. Farmers often rely on chemical-based fertilizers, instead of crop rotation or cover, to increase the land’s yield, which doesn’t promote the bacterial activity necessary for healthy soil in which plants can truly thrive, says Garrigues. And dated practices, such as fallowing a field without protective crop cover, make the soil susceptible to erosion when high winds rise.

In addition to questions of ecological sustainability, regional leaders are concerned that many family farms, under pressure from development on land and water resources, will simply be lost, or sold off, as the older generation retires.

In November 2011, 60 food producers, buyers, conservation groups and community members gathered for the Southwest Food and Farmland Forum to identify challenges, opportunities and solutions for securing regional agriculture. They determined protection of irrigated agricultural lands, education and support for new farmers, establishment of local food markets, and circumvention of distribution obstacles to be the most pressing goals.

Despite the challenges, an inexplicable optimism permeates southwestern Colorado’s agriculture community. These folks fervently believe in the area’s deep-rooted ag-

Dan James tends to afternoon chores in the company of his son, Grady, on the James Ranch 10 miles north of Durango in the Animas River Valley.

ricultural history and feel confident in their communities’ interest in local food. They recognize their role as a new generation that must be creative and business-savvy to not only address land and water availability and sustainability, but market and diversify their products; bear the burden of increased production, labor and distribution costs; and contribute to fostering a reliable, local market.

An Emerging Co-op Perhaps no farm understands how to negotiate the challenges facing small agricultural operations in southwestern Colorado better than the folks at James Ranch in La Plata County.

In the 1960s, Karen and David James moved from California to the Animas River Valley in search of ranchland. With some family help, they were able to acquire 460 acres and enough cattle to get a start. Their timing was good as the area, known for its cattle production, peaked agriculturally in 1975.

But even back then, land in the area was expensive relative to the profits a rancher or farmer could earn. The Animas Valley and surrounding regions boast high mountains, clear rivers and lush valleys attractive not only to agriculturalists but also developers, who benefit from a housing market driven by second-home owners and retirees. The Jameses realized that to become debt-free on their land, they’d have to develop some of it. They scaled back their ranching operation and focused on a 60-acre housing development on the south side of their property.

Fifteen years ago they sold the homes, paid off their land and invested back into ranching. In their second go-round, they decided to use a different model—grass-

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fed beef. According to son Dan James, they were attracted to holistic land management and grazing techniques, still relatively new at the time, because they were less inputdependent and more oriented toward the health of the land. “They were pioneers in the grass-fed movement,” Dan says. “They started selling ground meat out of the back of a pick-up.”

As the Jameses’ grass-fed beef venture grew, their grown children began migrating back to the ranch. Karen and David welcomed them, but also made it clear there were no free rides. “If we wanted to stay,” Dan says, “we each had to have our own enterprise.”

His two sisters returned first, one converting an under-utilized piece of land that Dan calls “a prairie dog town” to a vegetable farm. The other, with her husband, began a tree farm and took charge of the ranch’s egg production. Next, Dan and his wife returned to run a dairy and cheese-making operation; they also raise pork fattened on whey, the cheese’s nutritious byproduct.

The family sells some of their products in farmers’ markets as well as directly from the ranch, where, Dan says, there was always a need for a café. So, when another sister returned, it was natural she start a food cart.

On a grass terrace she makes meals for guests to enjoy, using food products from the ranch.

Although it seems like the perfect co-op, five diverse yet complimentary businesses working the same land and sharing costs, it doesn’t just synchronize naturally. Each business has autonomy, yet the land is jointly-owned and decisions are made collectively. The interpersonal relations, Dan explains, are just as important, if not more so, than the individual relationships with the

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Cattle and calves, corn for grain, wheat, dairy products, and hay are Colorado’s top five farm and ranch products based on 2010 sales. Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Scan this code with your smart phone or other device to access the USDA Fact Sheet for Colorado agriculture at www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/co.htm.

Courtesy Indian Ridge Farm

Mike Preston oversees operations at the Dolores River’s McPhee Reservoir (above). Barclay and Tony Daranyi (below) grow vegetables for 65 families at 7,000 feet in the San Miguel River Valley.

land. The family has invested in the ranch’s “human capital.”

“If you don’t have people on the land that can get along,” says Dan, “it’s all for naught.”

Small but Smart For agricultural operations in the region to not just survive, but become sustainable, Mike Preston, who oversees operations of the Dolores Project and chairs a regional water supply planning forum called the Southwest Basin Roundtable, believes there must be a give and take between tradition and invention. “Preparing for the future is a combination of watching it and maintaining some continuity among traditional agriculture families that have the knowledge and

ability to take care of the land,” he says.

“Then you ask how you can create new niches and introduce compatibility.”

Commodity farmers like the Mahaffeys represent the tradition Preston speaks of, while creative enterprises like James Ranch represent the invention. Additionally, a host of young, organic growers are sprouting up around the region and creating new niches for locally grown vegetables, poultry and sheep.

Chuck Barry and Rosie Carter, owners of Stone Free Farm in Arriola outside of Cortez, intuited that there was a market for local, organic food 18 years ago. Taking Rosie’s experience working in organic farms on the West Coast, they pioneered the organic, small farm movement in Montezuma County and were instrumental in establishing markets, like the Durango Farmers’ Market, that folks newer to the scene continue to benefit from.

Chuck and Rosie bought the land that is now Stone Free Farm in 1994—a small farmhouse with three acres of irrigated pasture, perfect for growing organic vegetables.

The rest, an additional 60 acres, is a mix of pasture, ponds and natural wooded areas on which they raise hay, provide forage for sheep and cattle, and shelter wildlife. The former owners, its original homesteaders, passed down knowledge of the land and its intimate history to the newcomers.

When Stone Free Farm began, they were the only organic vegetable farmers at the local farmers’ market, recalls Rosie, and at first folks winced at the prices. But after people saw the quality of their products and began to understand the cost of production, they returned weekly to buy Stone Free’s carrots and tomatoes, beets and garlic. Today, between the Durango and Cortez farmers’ markets and direct sales to local restauHeadwaters | Summer 2012

rants, Stone Free Farm easily sells all of its produce. In fact, according to Chuck, they could increase production but are hesitant to take on the additional costs.

Rosie attributes their success to the relationships they’ve formed with their customers and to treating farming like a business.

“We are always researching prices, tending to the soil and looking at what we can do better,” she says.

Farther north, in San Miguel County, Barclay and Tony Daranyi have cultivated a local market that is not only committed to buying their product, but that literally invests in their farm. The husband/wife duo own 100 acres and from just two of those, they grow enough vegetables to feed 65 families through their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Families buy in at the beginning of each year; then, during the harvest from June to October, they either come to the farm or the local farmers’ market to pick up their weekly share.

The Daranyis’ 100-acre farm, Indian Ridge, sits 7,000 feet above sea level and depends entirely on snowmelt from Lone Cone Mountain to the east, which they store in ponds, for water. Their growing season is incredibly short and weather extremely variable. Indian Ridge’s CSA members share some of the farm’s risk by paying for their shares months before production even begins.

The Daranyis further mitigate their risk through diversification, producing eggs, organic chickens and turkeys, as well as goats and beef cattle. Barclay also runs a bakery year-round boasting homemade granola, bread and baked goods. The Daranyis are committed to holistic, conservation farming methods, paying particular attention to soil management. According to Barclay, they “build” their soil by allowing their sheep, cattle and chickens to fertilize the land, rotating a variety of crops through the soil and always using crop cover in areas left unplanted.

Barclay is keenly aware of the obstacles facing farmers like her, yet she remains optimistic about growing food in Norwood and selling it locally. “We live in an agriculturally rich area,” she says. “We know we can grow food here; that is proven. We just have to take care of our soil.”

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Jeremy Wade Shockley

Jon Clayshulte’s High Valley Growers farms the Mancos Valley.

A Tough Entry Start-up farmers like the Daranyis and Rosie and Chuck are not alone. In fact, Cindy Dvergsten, a local farmer and agricultural consultant, recently studied Montezuma County’s agricultural outlook for local organizations and found that there had been a 35 percent

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increase in the number of farms in the county from 2002 to 2007. But the average size of individual farms had decreased along with the total acreage dedicated to farming and ranching. This trend mirrors that of the nation; the USDA reported 18,467 more small farms in 2007 than 2002.

In a region concerned with handing down its agricultural tradition, the growth in the number of farmers is an encouraging sign. Still, with the average age of the American farmer pegged at 55 years or older, the country—and the state—is at a pivotal juncture. According to Jane Ellen Hamilton, a land trust attorney and prominent leader in the Southwest Food and Farmland Forum, Colorado has lost 13 percent of its agricultural land since 1980 and the USDA shows agricultural lands here diminishing at a rate of 30,000 acres per year.

Often when land is taken out of agricultural production, the water rights attached to that land are transferred for municipal or industrial use, notes Hamilton.

Regional leaders are concerned that irrigation water stay with the land when it changes hands. But that necessitates a successful transition from one farmer to another. In parts of the region, such as the Pagosa Springs—Bayfied—Durango corridor, due to the area’s recreational appeal, land is unaffordable for new farmers, and older farmers may opt to sell to developers to ensure their retirement.

Colorado Foundation for Water Education

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The expense of land and water, combined with start-up infrastructure investments, makes it hard for new farmers to get into the industry. After spending four years working as an intern on farms across the west, Jon Clayshulte wanted to start his own operation, but he didn’t have ties to family land or capital to invest. “Finding land is a major problem,” Clayshulte says.

“I hear about it from everyone I’ve ever interned with. After interning you want to figure out how to keep farming, but it’s not easy, that’s for sure.”

Clayshulte tapped resources like Land Link, a program that works to match older farmers who want to retire with younger farmers seeking land. But it was actually on Craigslist where Clayshulte found his opportunity—a three-year lease on 35 acres, of which Clayshulte says 20 are suitable for planting, and a four-bedroom farmhouse in the Mancos Valley.

Although the historically farmed land hadn’t been cared for in several years, Clayshulte was encouraged because it had access to Mancos River ditch water in addition to 24 acre feet of water from the nearby Jackson Reservoir. Additionally, the landowner was investing $20,000 in the irrigation system.

Because of the implications related to leasing farmland versus owning it, Clayshulte and his four partners intentionally named their business High Valley Growers instead of High

yourwatercolorado.org

Valley Farm. They believe the word “farm” implies a long-term connection to a specific piece of land that “growers” does not. “Our business is different. It’s half land and half business,” Clayshulte says. “We can still take our reputation and our customers if we can’t renew our lease or get kicked off the land.”

High Valley Growers, who planted their first fields in fall 2011, remain optimistic about farming in the region. They plan on selling in area farmers’ markets as well as directly to restaurants. Citing a 2008 study conducted by the Journal of Extension, Clayshulte says, “Colorado has the capacity to provide itself with over 70 percent of its own food, and currently only 2 percent is bought locally.”

Dreaming of the potential, Clayshulte adds, “Even if we [Colorado] jump up to 10 percent, that’s huge.”

Delivering the Goods To make the leap Clayshulte hopes for, the region will have to overcome another major hurdle—distribution. The biggest city in the region is Durango with a population of just under 17,000. Other small towns in the area are separated by rugged terrain, making distribution and processing time-consuming and costly.

Meat producers face particularly difficult challenges because they have to travel far distances for processing—to Delta, Colo., or Monticello, Utah. Because of the area’s inabil-

ity to process, refrigerate, package and store the meat, most send their cattle to feedlots elsewhere to finish them for market.

The Southwest Food and Farmland Forum recognized this problem and identified developing local food markets, coordinating distribution, establishing a regional farm service center with processing and other value-added functions, and creating food hubs as key goals.

Some efforts toward those ends, such as those of Krista Garand, supervisor of student nutrition for the Durango School District, are already underway. Garand is working to make an institutional market, like that of the school district, accessible to farmers. The advantages are twofold: the initiative opens up a largerscale market to small, local farmers while providing healthy food for youth.

Garand, also a member of the Farm to School State Task Force, knows the school buying process can pose a real challenge for farmers. School districts place their food orders months ahead of time by bidding them out. After hosting a series of conferences to guide farmers through the complicated bid process, Garand received bids from 13 local farmers for the 2011-2012 school year. Garand reports spending 6 percent of her budget for the year, or $40,000, on local food including beef. With more farmers aware of the bidding process, she hopes to see that percentage increase each year.

In many ways, the area’s farmers are creating a macrocosm of the James Ranch model, discussing possibilities such as forming co-ops, sharing labor and infrastructure costs, and creating food storage facilities. And just as importantly, through using old markets, developing new ones and launching educational initiatives, the region continues to develop a strong, local demand for regional products.

But the fact remains: locally grown food is more expensive than mass-produced, imported food. To be successful, farmers will need a local clientele willing to pay for their products.

According to Dvergsten, in 1920 the average person spent more than 20 percent of their income on food, much of it locally grown and processed, while today the average person spends less than 10 percent and that food is typically imported from great distances. Dvergsten, along with other local farmers, is trying to change the paradigm. And like the rest of them, she remains optimistic, because in southwestern Colorado the demand for locally grown food is currently on the rise.

“As long as there is a demand for local food,” Dvergsten says, “there will be opportunities to produce it.” q Find nearby farms, markets, restaurants and grocery stores offering locally grown foods at localharvest.org.

Working for Water In Southwest Colorado Since 1983

Steven Harris, PE | Brett Sherman, PE | Carrie Lile, EIT

954 East Second Ave, #202 Durango, Colorado a (970) 259-5322 Headwaters | Summer 2012

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Dialogue

on the

Dolores

Nathan Fey

By Joshua Zaffos

I

In March 2010, nearly 40 people gathered at the Dolores Water Conservancy District offices in Cortez to help plan the future of the Dolores River. Such meetings, bringing together every sort of river user in the region, have been regular events since McPhee Reservoir was built on the river nearly three decades ago, creating the second-largest body of water in Colorado. With so many different interests, agreement hasn’t come easy, but this meeting of the Lower Dolores Working Group felt different.

Map by James Dietrich

Reservoirs are used for flood control and water storage, capturing runoff in the spring and saving it both to use later in the year or to make sure something is available during subsequent drought years. Blue Mesa is Colorado’s largest reservoir, trailed by McPhee, then Granby and Dillon.

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yourwatercolorado.org

Blake W. Beyea

The working group, an offshoot of the collaborative Dolores River Dialogue, was tackling whether portions of the river should be protected under the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. In particular, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management had identified 109 miles of the Dolores and its feeder streams as suitable for Wild and Scenic protection. The designation would formally recognize the Dolores for preserving “outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values”—as the law reads—but could also impose certain protective management conditions on practices such as cattle grazing or energy exploration. And although exercise of prior existing water rights for storage and diversion could continue, any future water development requiring a federal permit would be scrutinized for its potential impact on the outstandingly remarkable values.

Faced with a fractious decision, participants surprised themselves. By consensus they set out to propose an alternative to Wild and Scenic protection, working instead toward legislation designating a National Conservation Area, which would bring more flexible conservation measures for the Dolores River landscape without limiting foreseeable water development for farmers and communities.

“It felt like a really big turning point where everyone got on the same page,” recalls Amber Kelley, southern Dolores River organizer for the San Juan Citizens Alliance, a regional nonprofit conservation group. “That meeting was a real watershed moment.”

In the arid southwestern corner of Colorado, where annual average precipitation measures just 13 inches—and often less— the flows of the Dolores are essential to local quality of life. Past cooperative efforts had derailed when confronted with the toughest challenges, namely, how to time and release water from McPhee Reservoir that could meet the demands of irrigators and boaters, towns and tribes, and fish and wildlife.

Buoyed by the harmony over the conservation area plan, the Dolores River Dialogue has pushed beyond traditional conflicts and yielded collaborative successes—on paper and in the river.

Tapping the Dolores For as long as there have been Anglo communities in southwestern Colorado, there’s been talk of a dam on the Dolores River.

Congress first considered a study for a large reservoir in 1915, but decades passed without further action. The Dolores Water Conservancy District formed in 1961, dedicated to achieving the development. Seven years later, Congress authorized the Dolores Project; by 1986, the project’s 381,000 acre-foot McPhee Reservoir was full.

The Dolores Project not only shored up a 50- to 100-year water supply for residential

The scenic lower reach of the Dolores River flows toward Utah after its confluence with the San Miguel.

and small industrial growth in the towns of Cortez, Dove Creek, Towaoc and Rico, but it transformed regional agriculture. The project was able to provide irrigation water to an additional 35,000 acres in Montezuma and Dolores counties, almost doubling what had existed. Thanks to nearly 94,000 acre feet of water stored in McPhee for irrigation, farmers receive water throughout the summers and even during dry years, when the river’s flows naturally drop off to a trickle. Dryland farmers who had raised pinto beans and wheat now use irrigation to extend the growing season and to support the production of high-value dairy hay and an expanding array of fruit, vegHeadwaters | Summer 2012

etable and row crops.

But along with the agricultural renaissance, McPhee Dam changed flow patterns on the river—to either the enjoyment or chagrin of different local interests.

The Dolores Project legislation originally set aside 25,400 acre feet of water—roughly 10 percent of total accessible storage—in McPhee for fish and wildlife, including flows for a tailwater fishery just downstream of the dam where rainbow trout thrive. The legislation also acknowledged the popular, although highly seasonal, rafting community—which emerges when spring peak flows are high enough to accommodate watercrafts through the Dolores’ desert canyon—requiring that the Bureau of Reclamation and the Dolores Water Conservancy District, which operates the dam under contract to the federal agency, should manage flows to maximize rafting days.

But only in years when the Dolores River produces more water than McPhee can store is surplus water released for boating. Known as a “spill,” such releases of water beyond the reservoir’s capacity have occurred in seven of the past 13 years and are not expected in 2012. During dry years, when releases are limited to the water to benefit the fishery, the rest of the river’s flows are held back in the reservoir for communities and agriculture; during extreme drought years, these releases are insufficient to keep the river flowing at more than a trickle in some reaches.

In those downstream reaches, the health and viability of native fish populations have become an increasing focus of management decisions at McPhee. Three native, warmwater fish species—the roundtail chub, bluehead sucker and flannelmouth sucker— persist in the lower river but are now listed as “species of concern” by the state. The reservoir’s impact on peak flows, habitat and water temperatures has factored into the native fishes’ decline.

When the snowpack is significant, balancing all these different needs while maximizing water stored in McPhee for future years is easy, says Dolores Water Conservancy District General Manager Mike Preston. But in years when the snowpack is modest or scant, the job becomes “challenging” and then “painful,” he adds.

Compromise and Revival As the Dolores Project was built out, lands that received irrigation allocations were put into production, placing full demand on McPhee Reservoir. Meanwhile, since all Dolores Proj-

Native fish are indigenous to an area and are living within their natural range, whereas non-natives have been introduced into an environment in which they did not evolve.

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Courtesy Nathan Fey, American Whitewater

ect water except the fish pool and boating releases is diverted into the neighboring McElmo Creek Basin, the Dolores suffered for a lack of return flows—water that, had it been used within the basin, would have percolated through the ground and back to the river.

Managers, who initially established tiered dam release levels for dry, normal or wet years, with flows set at a low, medium or high rate depending on the conditions, hit their first “dry” year in 1990. According to protocol, releases fell to the low setting of 20 cubic feet per second—and the river system crashed.

“Fish started to die and people got concerned,” says David Graf, Colorado Parks and Wildlife water resource specialist.

By 1996, managers reconfigured how they managed the water set aside for the environment, developing a “fish pool” from which water would be released based on the recommendations of biologists. Rather than relying on pre-determined releases, the fish pool has introduced more flexibility for managers, says Graf, but the optimal amount of water for the pool—36,500 acre feet annually—isn’t fully available most years.

As drought set in across Colorado in 2002 and 2003, progress on the Dolores was at a standstill. River users realized that without meaningful actions to help the declining populations of native fish, they would likely end up on the federal Endangered Species List, which could mandate an increase in downstream releases at a cost to other water users.

In January 2004, the Dolores River Dialogue held its first meeting. The group formed to explore management options for McPhee.

Following a previous collaborative effort that failed, members agreed to act by consensus and make decisions based on scientific research and historical data.

There has been no shortage of topics to confront. The revision of a federal management plan for the Dolores River corridor and expanse of surrounding public lands compelled Dialogue members to consider the consequences of Wild and Scenic River designation, leading to the creation of the Lower Dolores Working Group in late 2008.

The March 2010 “watershed moment” demonstrated that river users are ready to compromise and cooperate. The consensus spawned a legislative committee, chaired

by Kelley of the San Juan Citizens Alliance, which crafted recommendations for the Dolores River National Conservation Area to protect the outstandingly remarkable values recognized by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The committee, which included local county commissioners, reached consensus on nearly all management aspects, but ran into an old obstacle when it came time to figure out flow management for native fish in conjunction with other river uses.

The lingering predicament could have derailed the process, but in late 2010, using $85,000 raised by local partners including the Southwest Basin Roundtable, the Dialogue launched “A Way Forward,” an initiative that commissioned three fish biologists to review existing science and assess the native fish populations. In August 2011, the researchers reported a lack of sizable populations for any of the native fish throughout the lower Dolores and then outlined nine opportunities for improving conditions without jeopardizing existing water rights. They also laid the groundwork for improved monitoring and evaluation.

An implementation team, including many Dialogue members, is completing a plan to put the first measures in place this summer. Scientists will implant transponders, known as PIT tags, in some fish and use real-time temperature and flow data to monitor their use of the river and the impacts of different reservoir spill practices.

A push to eradicate non-native smallmouth bass and brown trout in the lower river, which compete with and feed on the native fish, should follow. The Colorado Water Conservation Board has supported the implementation team’s work with $50,000.

In wet years, managers will also begin experimenting with releasing additional flows earlier to keep the river below spawning temperatures until rafting spills are over. In the past, large, cold pulses of water early in the summer have destroyed new generations of young fish. Managing reservoir releases to more closely resemble natural flow patterns and flood events should also provide some big boating days, says Nathan Fey, Colorado stewardship director of American Whitewater.

His group, a national nonprofit dedicated to river conservation, has also added to the pool of knowledge with a recreational flow study

that is being finalized this summer.

“There are really good scientific data and strategic approaches to managing spills for the benefit of the native fish,” says Shauna Jensen, a BLM hydrologist and working group member. “But, more than that, one of the greatest benefits of the process is the collaborative nature and diversity of the group. All of these people have come to the table with an open mind, willing to work out these things that for years no one’s addressed.”

Backed by science, the new flow regime is reaching a promising confluence of interests. “There’s enough water in the Dolores River to meet all of these needs,” says Don Magnuson, general manager of the Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company, “if we work together.” For its part, the ditch company stretches its water to meet demands through efficiency measures. It recently installed 11 miles of gravity-pressurized pipelines, and Magnuson says there are opportunities for improvements on many more stretches as funds become available.

The working group’s legislative committee will share its suggestions for the conservation area this summer, setting the stage to test an adaptive management strategy that allows flexibility between priorities on the river. Over the long term, partners will continue to explore ways to increase the fish pool and base river flows below the dam. They are also preparing to monitor social response to reservoir operations and how managed releases for whitewater boating are forecasted and announced to the general public. And though this year’s dry spring means another no-spill year for McPhee, Preston points to the critical need to figure out how to manage and monitor during such years, since they occur an average of 45 percent of the time. “While 2012 won’t be nearly as much fun for the implementation team, or for boaters, it is an important learning opportunity,” he says.

Challenges on the Dolores won’t be resolved overnight, but after episodes of inaction and stalemate, Dialogue participants are basking in an era of cooperation. q

Attend a meeting of the Dolores River Dialogue; Find a schedule and additional information at http://ocs.fortlewis.edu/drd/.

Watersheds are drainage basins from which precipitation moves downhill into a body of water such as a lake or river. Physical boundaries, like Colorado’s mountains, separate one watershed from another. Community leaders and concerned citizens have organized along watershed boundaries to form about 80 watershed groups in Colorado to address local water issues. Find a group near you at www.coloradowater.org.

Nathan Fey, of American Whitewater, kayaks the Dolores in 2005, which was an excellent year for boaters.

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Courtesy Telluride Tourism Board

Go. See. Do. Act.

Telluride’s Bridal Veil Falls

For the Tommyknocker at Heart

James Dietrich

Mining the Past in Telluride and the Headwaters of the San Miguel

Better known today for ski runs and music festivals, the historic mining community of Telluride sits at 8,756 feet above sea level in a spectacular box canyon at the base of the towering San Juan Mountains. Established in the 1870s, Telluride prospered from prolific gold and silver mines located in the headwaters of the San Miguel River more than 3,000 feet above town.

The mining industry brought more than wealth. Water from the mines and the milling processes left a legacy of impacts related to water quality and river flows. Water and mining also brought alternating current electricity to the nation when, in 1891, Lucien L. Nunn installed the world’s first hydropower AC electric plant and 2.6-mile transmission line in nearby Ames to power the Gold King Mill. Nunn parlayed water rights he had obtained for placer mining into a source of power for his turbines, forever changing the mechanized world. Explorations in and around Telluride offer many opportunities to experience the area’s mining legacies.

Go: Start your visit at the Telluride Historical Museum downtown in the old stone hospital at 201 West Gregory, which opens for the season Memorial Day weekend. Museum exhibits explain the early technologies—and the dangers—of hard rock mining. A few blocks away, off the River Trail to the east of Town Park, the Idarado Legacy Trail provides interpretive plaques about mining in the area, including information on the massive tailings ponds cleanup project that took place along this portion of the San Miguel River in the 1990s.

See: The former Smuggler Union Mine Company hydropower plant, built in 1907, is perched high on the cliffs east of Telluride, atop the breathtaking 365-foot drop of Bridal Veil Falls. Water from Blue Lake is piped to Bridal Veil Creek, which powers the plant. The plant was

restored in the early 1990s and run by a private concessionaire until 2010, when operations were returned to the Idarado Mining Company. Visit the cradle of AC electrical power, the historic Ames Hydropower Plant, by driving six miles south of Telluride on State Highway 145 to the signed turnoff for Ames and following the gravel road. Xcel Energy operates this plant, which replaced the original structure in 1906. Read more before you go: www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/ Milestones:Ames_Hydroelectric_Generating_Plant,_1891.

Do: Explore the mines above Telluride by following the old mule trails from town. Many of these routes are now popular, but rugged, four-wheel-drive roads or hiking paths to the high country. The Tomboy Mine road begins at Oak Street and leads to the fabled mine that contributed to the more than $16 million in gold and silver taken from the Telluride Mining District between 1905 and 1911. Details about the road, also known as Imogene Pass, are available at: www.fs.usda.gov/ recarea/gmug/recreation/ohv/recarea/?recid=32494&actid=94. Of course, the area also boasts a plethora of hiking and mountain biking trails, including runs at the Telluride Ski Resort. Hiking out of Telluride is mostly in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests: www.fs.usda.gov/activity/gmug/recreation/hiking.

Act: A number of local groups and federal agencies have formed partnerships to address regional water issues. Contact the San Miguel Watershed Coalition at www.sanmiguelwatershed.org to learn more about the numerous programs underway to restore and preserve water quality in the San Miguel drainage. —Jill Seyfarth Jill Seyfarth is a historian, archaeologist and writer based in Durango, Colorado.

Headwaters | Summer 2012

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NONPROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID DENVER, CO Permit NO 178 1580 Logan St., Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203

Jeremy Wade Shockley

The following institutions have generously provided financial support to make this issue of Headwaters magazine possible.

Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District Durango, Colorado

Pine River Irrigation District Ignacio, Colorado

Dolores River Dialogue Cortez, Colorado

San Juan Water Conservancy District Pagosa Springs, Colorado

Dolores Water Conservancy District Cortez, Colorado

San Juan Water Commission Farmington, New Mexico

Florida Water Conservancy District Durango, Colorado

San Miguel Water Conservancy District Norwood, Colorado

Lake Durango Water Company Durango, Colorado

Southern Ute Tribe/Natural Resources Department Ignacio, Colorado

La Plata-Archuleta Water District Ignacio, Colorado

Southern Ute Tribe/Growth Fund Ignacio, Colorado

La Plata West Water Authority Durango, Colorado

Southwestern Water Conservation District Durango, Colorado

Mancos Conservation District Mancos, Colorado

Trout Unlimited/Five Rivers Chapter Durango, Colorado

Mancos Water Conservancy District Mancos, Colorado

Ute Farm & Ranch Enterprise Towaoc, Colorado

Norwood Water Commission Norwood, Colorado

Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Towaoc, Colorado

Pagosa Area Water & Sanitation District Pagosa Springs, Colorado

Water Information Program Durango, Colorado