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<br />
<br />The last dam
<br />
<br />
<br />...
<br />
<br />co"UlllU!d,ftYmf pr.wrous poge
<br />
<br />under tl1e Clinton administration."
<br />The Bureau, Maynes concludes,
<br />can't fix the problems and should be
<br />dumped. The coalition should build Ani-
<br />mas-La Plata itself, as Utah water offi.
<br />cialsdid when they took over the failing
<br />Central Utah Project. Or, he adds, lhe
<br />tribes could take over responsibility for
<br />construction under !he Indian Self Deter-
<br />minationAct.
<br />
<br />c1ienlll-nine state and na!ional envi.
<br />ronmenlal groups - hired one of Col.
<br />orado's moot respected engineers, for-
<br />mer Stale Water Engineer Jeris Daniel.
<br />son.asaconsult.ant.
<br />CRpUIO argues that ALP will never
<br />gel built unless il is scaled back. "The
<br />Bureau has two choices," Caputo and
<br />POlter wrote last fall in a lelter 10 the
<br />Durango J/erald. "It can either keep try-
<br />;ng 10 bull ahead illegally with Animas-
<br />La Plata, in which case we will continue
<br />to sue them and beat them in court. Or it
<br />can recosnize that Animas-La Plata is an
<br />illegal turkey that cannot and should not
<br />be built, and begin to look seriously al
<br />cheaper, environmenlally friendly aller-
<br />naLivewaysofmeeting lhereal human
<br />needs in the Four Comers area:'
<br />
<br />A project that makes a Rube
<br />Goldberg machine look elegant
<br />
<br />Blaming the Bureau is clever but
<br />"disingenuous," says Jim Decker,a
<br />political science professor at Fen Lewis
<br />College in Durango and a founding
<br />mernberofTAR, Taxpayers for the Ani-
<br />mas River. The small Durango group has
<br />fought an almost solo war against Ani-
<br />mas-La Plata since 1979,
<br />The Bureau of Reclamation is just an
<br />engineering fum, says Decker, and does
<br />exacl.ly what local proponenlS tell iL He
<br />says thefatal flaw is the projoct itself.
<br />Decker, who can recite a litany of
<br />problems, always starts with lhe eco-
<br />nomics. ALP, he says, has been a finan-
<br />cialloser since it was authorized in
<br />1968, Its fitst incarnation - a high-alti-
<br />tude storage dam and a 48-mile-long
<br />system of canals, siphons and tunnels-
<br />would have COSt $110 million, and had a
<br />benefit-cost ratio that even by the
<br />Bureau of Reclamation's generous cal-
<br />culationsonlyrated.91tol.
<br />In the mid-1970s, the Bureau and
<br />lhe Southwestern Water Conservancy
<br />Districtconvencda series of meetings in
<br />Durango to make ALP more economic,
<br />Their solution, and the current plan, was
<br />an off-stream reservoir in Ridges Basin,
<br />a broad, scooped-out valley just south-
<br />west of and 500 feet above Dw-ango.
<br />The system requires three pumping
<br />stations. The first two stages will lift
<br />195,000 acre-feet of Animas River water
<br />the 500 feet to Ridges Basin Reservoir,
<br />and then another 400 feet up and over the
<br />ridgcline to the farmlands of the laPlata
<br />basin. There, a final set of pumps will
<br />presswize the system for SJrinkler irriga-
<br />tion, wilh long pipes S)XelIding across the
<br />basin's high, windswept mCS3.'J.
<br />That solution created new problems
<br />back in Durango. Ridges Basin Reser-
<br />
<br />Dump lhe Bureau of Reclamalion
<br />
<br />The ALP coalition, however, is
<br />undaWlIOO. Maynes calls Caputo's lhreat
<br />"braggadocio." He says the lawsuits are
<br />JrC,lCeduralissuesthatcanbeeasilyfixed.
<br />Maynes also laughs at the offer to
<br />negotiate. "We don't have to deal with
<br />lhe Sierra Club, We have to deal with
<br />the National Environmental Policy Act
<br />and the Endangered Species Act"
<br />Despite his poise, Maynes is Clearly
<br />furious that the pojectcan be socasily hekI
<br />up this late in the game. The blame, he
<br />says. lies with the Bureau of Reclamation.
<br />"At various times in the last 10
<br />years, people within the Bureau of
<br />Reclamation never thought we would be
<br />able 10 get the project built," says
<br />Maynes, "As a result, they didn't do
<br />their homework."
<br />Maynes says key studies on soil tOll.-
<br />icilY were required in 1986, but never
<br />done, The Bureau also failed to do sur-
<br />veys and dozens of other research items
<br />required by scveral federal laws.
<br />To the dismay of local supporters,
<br />those mistakes have made Animas-La
<br />Plata an easy target for what Maynes
<br />calls "slam dunk" lawsuits by Ole Sierra
<br />Club Legal Defense Fund. Even the
<br />Dura/lgQ Herald lashed out, warning
<br />thai "if BuRec's handling of the Animas-
<br />La PlaLa project is any indication of its
<br />competence, the agency should be one of
<br />the fltsl agencics targeted for elimination
<br />
<br />UiM,o..\iee
<br />
<br />Frank E. "Sam" Maynes
<br />
<br />The Bureau of Reclamation
<br />"didn't do their
<br />homework," Sam Maynes
<br />says.
<br />
<br />voir is downstream of town and on the
<br />wrong side of the vaIley, so lhe agency
<br />will have to build another set of pipes
<br />and pumps to get the town's share of
<br />water into its municipal reservoir.
<br />Thal's not all. There is another reset-
<br />voir and pumping staOOn on the lower La
<br />Plata River to help the Soulhern Utes
<br />develop theircoa1reserves; and elaborate
<br />
<br />plans for wattt exhanges that allow Farm.
<br />ington, Aztec and Bloomfield, N.M., to
<br />draw water from the project.
<br />The sprawling collection of pipes,
<br />pumps and reservoirs, says Decker, is
<br />possibly one of the most inefficient
<br />BuRec projects ever designed.
<br />Many agree. "We are buying a pr0-
<br />ject that will make Rube Goldberg look
<br />like he did his training at MIT, It will
<br />make Reddy Kilowatt do canwheels in
<br />celebration of all lhe e1ectricity this pro-
<br />ject will consume," said Rep. George
<br />Miller, D-Caiif" the current head of the
<br />House Interior Committee, in a 1988
<br />speech on Ute House floor.
<br />The new design is wcne, oot better,
<br />than the original plan,say<woomts. Testi-
<br />mony from a recent BuRee repcn to the
<br />Office of Management and Budget _
<br />released because of a Sierra Club Legal
<br />Defense Fund Freedom of Infonnatioo Act
<br />lawsuit - shows that costs have risen to
<br />$640 million. while benefits have dropped
<br />to 60 cents forevcry doDar invested. Pro-
<br />ject opponents warn, given the delays and
<br />the Bw-cau's history of underestimating
<br />project costS. that the fmaI price tag will
<br />likeIyt:Jl.ceed$lbiUioo.
<br />Once in operation, it will take over
<br />160 million kilowatt-hours of electricity
<br />a year to keep the pumps running. In tes-
<br />timony to OMB, the Bureau said that ris-
<br />ing power COSts - which will account
<br />for 41 to 46 percent of operation and
<br />maintenance costS - could make ALP
<br />so expensive that the federal government
<br />would have to subsidize its annual oper_
<br />ations, or shut it down.
<br />
<br />
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<br />lJ TE
<br />RESERVATION
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<br />Qirri~atiofl.
<br />I "irr""~3ti()f\ ph?~t.l
<br />I ~ proposed reservoln
<br />I .,.p::l major pipel;f'le
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<br />IBLOOI'\FltLD )
<br />
<br />12 - High CountIy News - March 22, 1993
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