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Senators urge Lujan to save. , water project : By Judith Brimberg :;;:0,4,:) Denver Post Staff Writer I Southwestern Cotorado's Ani- mas-La Plata water project may be safe after all, Colorado's two senators said yesterday after talk- ing with Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan. I In a draft report released earli- er tbis week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dealt a severe 'blow to the $582 million project, Wirth Armstrong designed to irrigate Colorado and department, but the secretary crit- New Mexico farmland and provide icized the report for failing to list , water for four Indian tribes. alternatives. Federat biologists wrote that "There have got to be atterna- Animas-La Plata's network of res- tives," Armstrong quoted Lujan as ervoirs and pipelines woutd violate saying. "He made it clear the de- the Endangered Species Act by partment can't walk away from hurting the habitat of Colorado this project." " squawfish. Wirth said he won assurances After the report was released, from Lujan that the agencies that Sen. Bill Armstrong, R-Colo., com- prepared the report - the Bureau plained to Fred McClure, director of Reclamation and the Fish and of President Bush's legislative Wildlife Service - "would be sent staff, Then Armstrong telephoned back to the drawing board" to find Lujan, as did Sen, Tim Wirth, D- ways to let Animas-La Plata go Colo. forward. Lujan cannot override the Fish Wirth said be reminded Lujan and Wildlife Service in tbis matter even though the agency is in bis Please see WATER on 3B 'Dt::NVt::=:R. y:>OST 05'-(0-90 '__ I " . Indian rights key to water project WATER from Page 1B that wbile the secretary was re- sponsible for protecting squawfish, he also was the trustee for Colora- do's Ute Indian tribes. The utes' welfare and their ability to use their resources are closely tied to the completion of Animas-La Pla- ta, the senator said, Lujan couldn't be reached for comment. Meanwhile, Gov. Roy Romer is- sued a statement contending that a 1986 water rights settlement with the Indians is the modern equiva- lent of a treaty and must be fot- lowed. "At the very least," Romer said, "the interests of the Indians and the trust obligations of the United 1- States must be balanced against the biological opinion of the Fish and Wildlife Service under the En- dangered Species Act." Spokesmen for the affected tribes vowed to fight abandonment of the project on all fronts. "I disagree that tribal rights should fall second to the rights of a fish that was destroyed in the San Juan River in 1962 as a 'trash fish' with the help of the Fish and Wild- life Service," said Leonard Burch, tribal chairman of the Southern Ute. The report not only hurts the In- dians, "it also deals the entire San Juan Basin a serious, long-term blow," said Judy Knight Frank, tribat chairwoman for the Ute Mountain Ute. The opinion could halt the allo- cation of 100,000 acre-feet of wa- ter for the Navajo Irrigation proj- ect and 40,000 acre-feet for the JicarilIa Indians. U.S. Sen, Pete Domenici, R- N.M., who serves on the Senate Ap- propriations Committee, also joined the hue and cry on the proj- ect's behalf. "More than 30 years of hard work have been done to bring this project to life," he said. "I am dis- mayed that this project could be set back another seven years. I want all alternatives studied that would allow it to go forward and still protect the squawfish." The Animas-La Plata project is in the president's 1991 federal bud- get.