BOARD01955

• Board Meeting Date: 3/21/1973
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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or Farmington. So they would enlarge their district to include those
two larger municipalities and several small municipalities. It would
be a joint Colorado-New Mexico project. In terms of funding, I think
that the state of Colorado hopefully will be able to rely also upon
the New Mexico congressional delegation to seek additional funds for
the Animas-La Plata project. They have a great deal to gain in this
project as do we.

Mr. Geissinqer: Sam, I would like to ask a question. I see here the
total project water supply is around 200.000. and did I understand
correctly that the Indians want 80,000 of that?

Mr. Maynes: That is what the Bureau of Reclamation has designed in
the project at the time it was authorized for utilization and use
by the Indians. The Southern ute tribe, and I can't quote the figures
on the Ute Mountain Ute tribe because I don't have them available,
but the Southern Ute tribe has in excess of 400,000,000 tons of
strippable coal in the southwest part of La Plata County. The coal
resources are in one place and the Animas River has all the water
and that is where we have to get the water. In addition to that,
they have recently completed a coal resource study of the western
part of the Southern Ute reservation by the New Mexico School of
Mines, which will show that altogether, and I am sure my memory is
right on this because I quizzed the guy on it. Altogether just on
the western part of the Southern Ute reservation, going down to
depths of 8,000 feet, there are some 35 billion tons of coal according
to this study. Now, approximately 40.000 feet of that water would
be set aside in the Animas-La Plata project at the Three Buttes Res-
ervoir which would then be put together with the Southern Utes'
coal resources and likewise one of the reservoirs for the Ute Mountain
Utes for development of their coal resources. The Southern Utes
and the Ute Mountain Utes are as cJncerned as any other citizens in
the state of Colorado about the air pollution occasioned by the
Four Corners plant. Several of the tribal members, and the one I
am referring to is Mr. Chris Baker, who is a sheepman and cattleman,
said, "We don't want to burn our coal and pollute the air. We just
as soon wait until we can develop our coal in some other manner
besides burning it." It looks like from the announcements or pro-
nouncements which are coming out of Utah Construction Company and
the Farmington area, that that era is not far away because they are
going ahead full speed with a coal gasification plant and investment
of several of hundreds of millions of dollars down there. It looks
like if we can get the Animas-La Plata project constructed and put
the water with the coal that the Indian tribes are going to be in a

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