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<br />, <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />) <br /> <br /> <br />Brent Blackwelder a/the <br />Environmental Policy Center says <br />damming the Dolores River would add <br />to the salinity ofrhl! Colorado RiVer. <br /> <br />) <br /> <br />simply not be enough water to go around. <br />Wc'veargued Ihat Ihe river's walcr qual- <br />i1y is so poor now that no morc dams <br />should be allowed_ But the local conser. <br />vancy districts. the state governors and <br />the Bureau of Reclamation ju..sl don't <br />want to accept this view," <br />The Colorado River basin's biggest <br />natural salinity source is the Dolores <br />River. The Bureau of Reclamation is at- <br />tempting to remedy the problem by di. <br />verting the source of Dolores River salt, <br />but Blackwelder dismissed such projects <br />as costly "Band-Aid solutions." <br />The bureau is also building a S234.] <br />million desalting plant near Yuma. Ariz.. <br />that is about a third completed. It's pri- <br />mary mission is to allow the United <br />States to meet its treaty commitment to <br />Mexico of 1.5 million acre feet of. water a <br />year with a salinity content pegged to <br />that of Colorado River water arriving at <br />the Imperial Dam on the Arizona-CaJi- <br />fornia border. <br />The trouble with that arrangement is <br />that the salinity level at Imperial has <br />been rising. In 1979, aecording to the <br />Bureau of Reclamation, Imperial's salin- <br />ity concentration averaged 810 milli- <br />grams per liter, and the bureau warns <br />that it could reach 1,140 milligrams per <br />liter by the turn of the century if no <br />control measures are taken. About half <br />the river's salts come from natural <br />sources. The rest is atlributable to irriga- <br />tion return, reservoir evaporation and <br />other water losses. <br />The bureau estimates that the "high <br /> <br /> <br />.;, <br /> <br />companies with wa- <br />ter that would other- <br />wise come from <br />farmers; the Mc- <br />Phee Dam, he ar- <br />gues, would be of lit- <br />tle use to energy in- <br />terests. <br />In Cortez, at <br />least, there is little <br />question about <br />where the real push <br />for the Dolores proj- <br />ect originated. The <br />answer is the still un- <br />met waler claims of <br />the Ute Mountain <br />Ute Indians. "We <br />IitlI would never have <br />gOllen the Dolores <br />project approved in <br />the first place if it <br />had not been for the <br />Indians,"said David <br />Herrick, who also is <br />a former Cortez city <br />councilman. <br />The Indians, <br />whose reservation <br />lies just south of <br />Cortez, have strong water rights that <br />threaten those of the Cortez area farmers <br />who currently draw water from the Dolo- <br />res to irrigate their land in the Monte- <br />zuma Valley. The McPhee Dam would <br />allow these farmers to get irrigation water <br />on a regular basis, place a similar amount <br />of dry-farming land under irrigation and <br />provide 23,900 acre feel of water to the <br />Indian reservation. The Indians' share <br />comes to about 24 per cent of the ex- <br />pected annual use from the reservoir. <br />An agreement was made with the tribe, <br />according to Herrick, to use some of the <br />Dolores River water to replace the water <br />from the Mancos River that now runs dry <br />through the reservation. The tribe, how- <br />ever, is now questioning whether it wants to <br />pay for the distribution system that would <br />carry the water south about 45 miles from <br />the reservoir to Towaoc. This cost report- <br />edly would come to about a third of the <br />tribe's annual budget of $1.5 million. <br />"The McPhee Dam really represents a <br />$500 million solution to the Ute Moun- <br />tain Indian water rights problem," Har- <br />ding said. <br />Whu lamm fears most is the \Vest's <br />next major drought. He nOled that the <br />Rocky Mountain states' average rainfall <br />of 12 inches a year is only 2 inches above <br />that of a desert. The West's droughts <br />come about every 21 years, Lamm said, <br />and some of them last 5 to 7 years. <br />The last drought lasted only two years <br />and ended in 1977. "A three-year <br />drought," Lamm predicted, "would be <br />catastrophic." 0 <br /> <br />-:. ./,/. <br />/-'~ <br />J ~ <br />~ ,. <br />.- , <br /> <br />J>.. ' <br />~~ <br /> <br />h~ <br />" ,)--<"JtY/.. <br />. f ~ Hflf. <br />11_ ~.. <br /> <br />.,.~ <br /> <br />DanD B. Hill. Bureau of Reclamation project manager for <br />the JfcPhee Dam, is confident tholthe dam for the Dolores <br />River will be finished regardless a/the increase in the cost <br />to local residents. <br /> <br />salt load" of 10 million tons that enters <br />lake Mead in Nevada annually ad- <br />versely affects a million acres of irrigated <br />land in the Lower Basin states. Last year, <br />according to the bureau, the Colorado <br />River's saltiness caused about $96 million <br />in damages. <br />Blackwelder contends that damming <br />the Dolores would increase the Colorado <br />River's salinity level by ]0 milligrams per <br />liter, which would add another $4.7 mil- <br />lion to crop losses downstream. <br />SUI Lamm argues that if Colorado <br />doesn't provide more water now for its <br />future population growth, energy devel- <br />opers will buyout the water rights of the <br />state's farmers because "water runs to- <br />ward money." Exxon Corp. 's recent deci- <br />sion to quit its Colorado oil shale develop-- <br />ment plans represents only a temporary <br />abatement of energy exploitation in the <br />stale, in Lamm's view. In any event, Ex- <br />xon is still purchasing 6,(0) acre-feet of <br />water from the Reudi Reservoir near As- <br />pen on the Fryingpan River. <br />But many conservationists disagree. <br />Harding, for one, argues thai energy com. <br />panics will buy water rights from some <br />of the best farmland along the west slope <br />of the Rockies because that's where the <br />oil shale is located. The energy compa- <br />nies, he said, "only go for the good, old <br />water rights" that go with the best farm- <br />land. <br />Harding points out that there is little <br />energy activity along the Dolores River. <br />Thus he rejects the argument that the <br />McPhee Dam would provide the energy <br /> <br />:'<olATIONALJOURNAl1/17/82 1259 <br />