9337

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9337
• Author: Colorado River Water Users Association.
• Title: The Colorado River of Many Returns.
• USFW Year: 2001.
• USFW - Doc Type: Coachella, California.
• Copyright Material: NO

?t?W a
NEW MEXICO
The view from a plane of northwest New Mexico's San Juan
Basin shows a land that lies among lonely buttes, solitary mesas
and massive rock escarpments. But if one slows down and takes
a longer look at this valley on an evening in May, the multi-hues of
reds and browns that accent the varied rock formations come into
focus. The colors are enriched by
the setting sun that enlivens the _
landscape with many shades of
blues and greens.
As in the three distinct -
cultures of the San Juan Basin, there
is a cohesiveness bonded by the San_:
Juan River and its tributaries. Tlli, r
bonding was started by CoronadoN4? W
with his 350 Spaniards and 800 - vC®
Indians in 1541 when the rivers
were named Rio de Las Animals
Perdidas (River of the Lost Souls),
La Plata (Silver River), Los Pines
(River of Pines), Florida (River of
Flowers) and the Piedras (River of Stones).
To the early inhabitants of the basin, agriculture was the main
influence of the economy. The Anasazi Indians likely were the first to
utilize water from the river, using crude ditches whose remnants were
evident until the late 1960s. While the Anasazi were the first ditch
builders, construction of ditches has continued with the crafting of 18
on the Animas River, 13 on the La Plata River and I I on the San Juan
River below Navajo Dam. Additional water for irrigation of Indian
lands is provided by the San Juan River at and below the Hogback
Trading Co., which is 17 miles west of Farmington, N.M. Along with
the ditches came the need for rural domestic water users associations.
Eleven organizations have come into existence to supply the needs of
rural residents and have received the rights to change the use of
agricultural water to domestic by the approval of requests to the New
Mexico state engineer's office.
The first permanent settler, P.M. Samon, began raising his first
crop in 1878. Eventually, the settlers in the river valley incorporated
various crops of corn and grains in the Aztec area, with Bloomfield
and Farmington producing crops of apples, peaches, apricots and
cherries. These were supplemented by alfalfa and thriving cattle
and sheep industries.
Any area in the Southwest is dependent upon many factors
for economic growth; the most important, perhaps, is the availability
of water.
The San Juan Basin is fortunate in that at least 63 percent of
the water that flows in the rivers of New Mexico runs through it.
Another dependent growth factor in this state is the influx of money
for the development of water projects. Due to the extraordinary size of
water projects in these parts, several levels of government are needed to
facilitate and complete these endeavors. That is true today, especially
for the federal government.
One of the first involvements in basin water developments by
the federal government was the Navajo Dam project, which was started
as a site investigation in 1904 and was under construction from 1958 to
1962. The dam and resultant reservoir are on the San Juan River, with
the dam measuring 400 feet in height and three-quarters of a mile long
with a maximum storage of 1.7 million acre-feet. The reservoir, at
capacity, covers 15,610 acres of land. Its contents are valuable both to
COLORADO RIVER WATER ALLOWS TRIBAL FARMING TO FLOURISH ON THE MESAS
OF NORTHERN NEW MEXICO, AS IT DOES HERE AT THE NAVAJO INDIAN
IRRIGATION PROJECT.
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