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<br />001131 <br /> <br />STATEMENT BY MIKE GRISWOLD BEFORE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON <br />ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIA nONS.' <br /> <br />Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity today to speak on behalf of the Animas La <br />Plata Water Conservancy District (the District). The District was formed under the <br />Colorado law about 22 years ago to plan for and develop the water resources within our <br />boundaries. A primary undertaking of the District has been promotion of the Animas La <br />Plata Project. The District also expected to be the agency to collect payments from <br />irrigators using Animas - La Plata project water, and then to pass those funds on as <br />repayments for construction by the Bureau of Reclamation. <br /> <br />I have been a Director on the District board for ten years, and its president for the past six <br />years, until I stepped down in February of 2004. During that period, a combination of <br />environmental, financial and political concerns about the original Project's scope brought <br />home the realization thatthe Project,'as originally configUred, would not be built in the <br />foreseeable future. Then Secretary of the Interior Babbit was adamant that the downsized <br />project could not include any irrigation features. With reluctance, our District supported <br />building a down-sized version of the ALP which will allow for the settlement of the <br />reserved water right claims of the two Ute Indian tribes of Colorado and provide M&I <br />water for use in our county and in San Juan County, New Mexico. The ALP, authorized <br />by Congress in 2000 and now under construction, will also allow the Navajo Nation to <br />receive M&I water and have it delivered from Farmington NM to Shiprock NM by a <br />pipeline to be built as part of the Project.. <br /> <br />, <br />The Bureau of Reclamation contracted the cost estimation process for the down-sized <br />project, and included those costs in the 2000 FSEIS. Our District did not participate in <br />either the preparation or the presentation to the public of these cost estimates. We did <br />argue, however that the "sunk costs" associated with the earlier Project's irrigation <br />features should not be considered as a cost of the downsized Project. <br /> <br />The non-Indian participants in this Project have been consistent in their commitment to <br />pay for their proportionate share of the reasonable construction costs for the three <br />remaining Project features which are the pumping station, the conduit, and the off-stream <br />reservoir. The 2000 Amendments provide that non-Indian participants could elect to pay <br />their share of the construction costs up front, thereby avoiding being charged interest <br />during construction, or they could execute repayment contracts. The District arranged to <br />have the full amount of our share of the project costs paid out of funds available to the <br />Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority (the Authority). Our share <br />of the Bureau's construction cost was deposited by the Authority in an interest earning <br />escrow account from which the Bureau has already made withdrawals in direct ratio to <br />the expenditures of Federal appropriations for Project construction. <br /> <br />Construction officially began on November 9,2001. Our borrowed money was at risk <br />from that date onward, under a contract between the Bureau and the Authority. For the <br />last two years, I personally represented our District at construction coordination meetings <br />