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<br />I,',:.' <br />! <br />.~ <br /> <br />.~ <br /> <br />"We're going to <br />be saddled with <br />a proJect that's <br />going to cost us <br />a lot of mone't( <br />A lot of people <br />are going to <br />come bad< one <br />day and sa',! <br />Why have you <br />allowed this to <br />happen to us?m <br />- Ray Frost <br /> <br />28 - C 1996 H~ Country News <br /> <br />1990 <br /> <br />continued from page 25 <br /> <br />resources that we have," Burch said, "Maybe it <br />will let the people now living off the reservation <br />come home, because this is their reservation," <br />A study commissioned by the Southern <br />Utes and completed by the Washington, D.C., <br />finn of Sonosky, Chambers & Sachs conclud- <br />ed this summer that the project would benefit <br />the tribe. "I think, with proper planning, prop- <br />er management, we can afford the project," <br />says Burch. <br />Others on the reservation disagree. "We're <br />going to be saddled with a project that's going <br />to cost us a lot of money," says Ray Frost. "A <br />lot of people are going to come back one day <br />and say 'Why have you allowed this to happen <br />to us?' " <br /> <br />The Southern Utes will pay from $190 to <br />$200 per acre-foot of water annually for 50 <br />years for their 26,500 acre-foot allotment for <br />municipal and industrial use, when and if they <br />begin to get it. The Washington, D.C.-based <br />Environmental Policy Institute, which com- <br />pleted a study of the project in t 987, calculat- <br />ed that water payments would amount to about <br />$5,000 per year per tribal member, a cost that <br />would deeply cut into any profits the tribe <br />would earn from development of the reserva- <br />tion's coal reserves. <br />Frost says he backed the project when it <br />left open the possibility of the Indians' selling <br />water downstream to cities in Arizona and <br />California. That allowance was curtailed, pri- <br />marily at the hands of the California delega- <br />tion, as the Colorado Ute Water Settlement bill <br /> <br />ENlN\J\~~'lTLETh <br />UtID TO Br-ll\l\l6A1fb-i),[.11\E PRmr- <br />~f.JlNE,_ ~,iWi:2. <br /> <br />-'.", <br />........~~"'^ <br />Ou"'?o /" <br />~'I,." <br />./'". '5 <br />"PUft'ATORY <br />^" ,., <br />, ./ - AREA' ..-. <br />. '-./"'. ~" <br /> <br /> <br />...---' <br /> <br />MOUNTAIN ; <br />: UTE : <br />: RESEfWA'T10N J <br />I I <br />I I <br />;- - - - - -------..., <br />, <br />~nII"'Klx..1\. : <br /> <br /> <br />~ <br />UAN RI\J~\t. <br /> <br />die-- "1!""'^' <br />