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THE DENVER POST . .. Wednesday, April 19, 2000 ~ COLORADO ,. - .. .'~ , ,. ~;. '. '. EPA's concerns dog water project. By Electa Draper Denver Post Four Corners Bureau l Animas,La Plata Project proponents learned Tuesday that the u.s, Environ- mental Protection Agency has "continu- ing concerns" with the long-proposed southwestern Colorado reservoir and its compliance with the Clean Water Act In a letter sent Monday, Denver-based EPA Regional Administrator William Yellowtail said that before his agency can advise Congress that A-LP conforms to the nation's environmental laws, the Bureau of Reclamation must provide more details on wetlands in its environ- mental analysis of the reservoir project. The EP A worked with the bureau to prepare the latest draft of an environ- mental-impact statement, released in January, yet the agency remains dissat- isfied with the product, Yellowtail said, More sought on wetlands impact The EP A also rejected documents pre- pared by the bureau in 1979, 1980, 1992 and 1996, Congress authorized A-LP in 1968, but it has stalled and lurched for three decades because critics pounded away at environmental and economic issues related to what was to be the last of the great federal dam projects. Last year, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt proposed a smaller, compro- mise version of the once-massive proj- ect that many A-LP supporters believed migbt be the only chance left to build the dam a few miles south of Durango and satisfy the senior water-rights claims of the Ute tribes, "I'm sure tbe issues that (the EPA) has raised can and will be addressed by the bureau prior to issuance of a final environmental-impact statement," trib- al spokeswoman Christine Arbogast said Tuesday, "The EPA has made it clear in the past that it's not a fan of building a storage project to (satisfy) the tribes' water rights." The EP A is asking for more informa- tion comparing the impacts of the Bab- bitt-backed proposal for a smaller Ridges Basin Reservoir to an alterna- tive preferred by a coalition of local and national environmental groups, That alternative calls for augmenting and coordinating existing federal facHi- . . DURANGO . <;. , ,.... ties in the region to satisfy the Color~dQ" Utes' claims and the needs of non-Iodi- an communities in the region. The coalition's alternative would pro:: vide a water supply through more etlii., ' cient operation of existing reservo~i" the purchase of land, water rights ana" reservoir storage space 'from currene owners; and raising the height of Lemon Dam, which stores Florida River water, about 20 miles northeast of Durango;';;:, The EPA suggests that the bureil'\l's.. final environmental document proviQe detailed plans for repairing and repl.cr ing wetlands and other habitats that' would be lost or damaged by dam con.,; struction in Ridges Basin. .. .