WSP01548

• File Number: 8220.106
• Description: Animas-La Plata
• State: CO
• Basin: San Juan/Dolores
• Water Division: 7
• Date: 7/1/1987
• Author: EPI
• Title: An Analysis of the Animas-La Plata Project - Durango-Colorado - July 1987
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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ENERGY DEVELOPMENT

Assessment of the Project's merits and feasibility is
complicated by uncertainties in the resource development
plans and goals of affected tribal groups.

In testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on
Energy and Water on March 25, 1981, Vice-Chairman Baker of
the Southern Ute Indian Tribe had this to say about the need
for the Animas La Plata Project:

...The nation's need for energy provides us with an
opportunity to become economically self-sufficient.
Our lands contain an abundance of natural gas and
coal which, with an adequate supply of water, can
be developed. Tribal members will have the chance to
develop skills and get jobs. Sufficient agricultural,
domestic, and industrial water needed for our health
and economic stability is allocated to the Southern
Ute Indian Tribe by the Animas La Plata Project. In
addition, our relatives in the Ute Mountain Ute Indian
Tribe will receive waters which they sorely need for
municipal and agricultural use.

Competition for water in our arid region is fierce, and
for our protection, the Department of Justice has filed
a lawsuit to determine our reserved rights. Even if we
are legally successful, our use of the waters of the
Animas and La Plata Rivers would deprive our non-Indian
neighbors of water they need and use for agricultural
and municipal use. Furthermore, there would still be a
need for our tribe to develop water storage facilities.

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In testimony presented a year earlier to the same
subcommittee by Mr. Baker the following justification for
the project was given:

...the tribe has agreed with its white and Spanish
neighbors as to the extent of water which would be
available to the tribe from the Project. For example,
for the development of the coal on the Southern Ute
Indian Reservation we have been allocated 26,600 acre
feet under the project. We agree with this allocation
and will work for and within the project to maximize
our energy resources with this amount of water.

This question of what the water is really needed for
- human consumption, energy development or economic
development - needs further examination by Congress,
especially if it is tied to the development of the Animas

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