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Ii . It is a high-risk ~ategy - ill desperate . . ;Gonsensus effort: to resolve a desperate 'situation. 1996 defunding the project when the House of Representatives stripped A-LP of $10 million (HCN, 8/5/96). The money was restored after a plea by Sen. Campbell, but it didn't bode well for the many bigger requests the $710 million project will make of Congress. In addition, the environmentalists came to Arvada with an "Indian blanket" of their own: Ray Frost heads the 200-member Ute group that opposes the project. FroSst calls A-LP a "hoax" that would develop 60,000 acre-feet of Indian water, but never deliver it. In a recent letter to Congress, Frost wrote, "About 64 per- cent of the water supplied by the project goes to non-Indian usoo;. More than 40 percent (of that) will go to irrigators at a subsidy of $5,000 an acre, allowing them to grow low-value crops with a value of only $300 an acre." Frost has been a lone voice On the Southern Ute tribal council. But the council's dynamics may change now that it,S leader, Leonard Burch, has stepped down after 30 years, due to term limits adopted in 1990. A recent tribal election, however, was inconclusive. A runoff election will be held in December between Clement Frost, an A-LP supporter who got 168 votes, and Orian Box, who got 87. Box has taken no position on A- LP, but the two incumbent council members who were re-elected continue to support A-LP. Meanwhile, enthusiasm in the Anglo world seems to be softening. The Durango Herald, a conscientious, locally owned daily, bucked local tradition this summer in two edi- 8 - 0 1996 H~ COUnlly News torials that took a stand against the full project. "It's time for a reality check," the paper wrote, and called for a scaled-down version - "an A-LP Lite" - and for a cooperative approach. The editorials were a crack in what had been a united establishment. If events have turned against the project's backers, why shouldn't the environmentalists just keep up the pressure in the courts until A- LP is dead? A glance at the negotiating table in Arvada gives the answer: Sitting with Fox of the Sierra Club and attorney Lori Potter is Ray Frost, the Southern Ute who expects his allies to help him get water to his tribe. The process continues At the moment, the process has gotten past its first major obstacle: All sides agreed to put lawsuits and regulatory deadlines on hold until Jan. 12, 1997. With that done, the teams held a second meeting, this time in Denver in late October, to discuss how to proceed. How can they come up with criteria that any A-LP solution must meet? How will the group analyze the structural (dams and canals and pumps) and non-struc- tural (conservation, water exchanges) options? Will the group make decisions by majority or by consensus? Then there is funding. How can the oppo- nents afford to participate? Just by being in the room, discussing alternatives, the environmen- talists risk alienating their constituencies. Should they also draw down their treasuries? Despite outrage from pro-A-LP interests, funds are beginning to appear. Doug Young of Gov. Romer's office says that the EPA and the Department of Interior have agreed to donate $10,000 'each to a Colorado state fund that any of the 'teams can apply to. And Ray Frost's Southefn Ute Grassrools Organization has been granted $30,000 by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The next meeting of the negotiating group will be held Dec. 3 in Farmington, NM. It is open to the public. For further information, call Young at 303/866-2155 or e-mail him at youngd@CapitoLstate.co.us. . I;' Freelance writer and radio journalist Becky Rumsey of Durango, Colo., helped research and write this report. Ed Marston is publisher of High Country News.