Headwaters Fall 2004

• Year: 2004
• Title: Headwaters
• Author: Colorado Foundation for Water Education
• Description: Fall 2004 - Focus on Southwestern Colorado
• Publications - Doc Type: Other

Naturally limited water resources, drought and growth team up to send
southern La Plata County on the hunt for new water supplies
ells are going dry in La
Plata County. And even
though the Animas -La
Plata Project currently
under construction just outside Durango
will be dedicated exclusively to tribal and
municipal water use, it will not satisfy
all of the county's demands for potable
drinking water.
Located in the and Four Corners
region, La Plata County is home to some
47,000 residents. Although still predomi-
nately rural with an economy driven by
tourism, natural resource extraction and
agriculture, the county did not escape
the growth boom of the 1990s. County
records show that directly east of Durango,
in the Bayfield and Ignacio areas, there
were some 11,488 new housing starts
between 1976 and 2000. Some expect the
population to quadruple over the next 30
to 40 years.
The recent drought also served to high-
light what growth will do to local water
demands, and to underline southern La
Plata County's pending crisis in domestic
water supply. The signs are there: falling
water tables, wells gone dry, and springs
pumping at half their normal capacity.
SOUTHWEST LA PLATA COUNTY
For residents of the La Plata River
Valley west of Durango, drinking water
from the Animas -La Plata Project will
arrive none too soon. While the final con-
figuration of the ALP project was stripped
of agricultural irrigation water that would
have transformed the valley's farm and
ranch economy, naturally limited surface
water and poor ground water quality have
also put a damper on the area's residential
development —at least for now.
Currently, about half the families in
this sparsely populated area get their
drinking water from ground water wells.
Others, faced with either poor water qual-
ity or dry wells, must haul their water
from Durango or from a natural artesian
source called Marvel Springs.
"Some 180 families are served by
By Cris Meyer
Marvel Springs," relates Brice Lee, presi-
dent of the La Plata Water Conservancy
District. According to Lee, demand for
Marvel Springs' water reflects the severity
of the area's water supply problems, and
the spring experienced a dramatic surge in
use during the drought of 2002. Eventually,
they were required to install a "key" system
where families must pay for use, and
impose a 1,500- gallon fill -up limit.
The search for long -term solutions
to the area's domestic water problems
has been an ongoing collaborative effort
involving the Animas -La Plata Water
Conservancy District, La Plata County, La
Plata Water Conservancy, Southwestern
Water Conservation District, Bureau of
Reclamation and several New Mexico enti-
ties. Recently, these organizations assisted
in the formation of the non - profit La Plata
West Water Company to identify solutions
to the region's potable water dilemmas.
Their solutions have a certain amount
of urgency. Water from ALP is still sev-
eral years away —the reservoir is not even
expected to fill for another seven years —
and there is no funding in the project to
move the water over to the La Plata area.
Regardless, the water supply situation in
the valley is rapidly degrading. Recent
drought has reduced surface irrigation dra-
matically, so return flows (water not taken
up by crops and not returned to ground
water or rivers) are not recharging the shal-
low aquifers like they once did. Even flows
at Marvel Springs have dropped by almost
half in the last several years.
"Because Ridges Basin Reservoir will
not even start filling until 2009, we're
looking at interim solutions to supply
our current needs," says Mark Langford,
president of La Plata West. "People need
water now."
One proposal is to buy one million gal-
lons per month of treated water from the
Upper La Plata Water Users Association
in Farmington, New Mexico. That water
would be delivered to the Colorado -New
Mexico state line through a network of
distribution pipelines. But before this
could happen, a local delivery system
would need to be constructed. La Plata
West Water Co. is currently conducting
legal and engineering studies to evaluate
the feasibility of this alternative.
One thing is certain, it won't come
cheap. Pat Greer, a long -time -valley resi-
dent and "keeper of the well" at Marvel
Springs, wonders where the money will
come from to construct such a distribu-
tion system. "This is such a poor com-
munity," Greer worries. "It may be hard
to get it [the distribution system] paid
back." Sharing that concern, the La Plata
West Water Co. has stated its intention
to seek funding from the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) and
other sources to supplement payments
from local users.
Yet until these sorts of issues can be
resolved, many La Plata Valley residents
will continue to haul water, one load at
a time, perhaps wondering how their
landscape may change when more water
for homes —but not farms — arrives in
their valley.
SOUTHEAST LA PLATA COUNTY
In recent years, drought and naturally
limited water resources have combined
with a good measure of residential devel-
opment to threaten the ground water
supplies enjoyed by of thousands of hom-
eowners and businesses in southeastern
La Plata County.
The countryside southeast of Durango
is a mixture of tribal, private, state and
federal lands. Although towns such as
Bayfield and Ignacio have their own
municipal water systems, the majority
of local residents use private wells. Many
wells tap the shallow groundwater aqui-
fers that underlie the region — aquifers
that rely primarily on recharge from pre-
cipitation and agricultural return flows.
But changing land use and drought are
stressing these limited resources. Severe
drought has drastically reduced not only
the amount of natural precipitation mak-
ing its way into the aquifers, but it has
10 COLORADO FOUNDATION FOR WATER EDUCATION