It has been a decade since Lake Nighthorse filled with about 124,000 acre feet of water, and the two tribes that collectively own almost half of it are asking when they will be able to put it to use. That’s understandable.
As reported in the Herald, (Nov. 1), the two tribes would like to be added to the water holders that are being compensated for not using their water.
Lorelei Cloud, vice chairwoman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, said last week during a panel discussion at Fort Lewis College that driving past the reservoir is painful, especially during drought conditions. Seeing that water, which is not being put to use for the tribes, hurts.
The last significant reservoir to be constructed in the West, known federally and formally as the Animas-La Plata Project, and informally as Lake Nighthorse, named after former Rep. and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, eventually surmounted numerous challenges – cost, opposition from downstream Colorado River water users and environmental issues – in the 1980s and 1990s to be approved and funded.
Funding did not include what was to be phase two – delivery systems. Water from the reservoir, which lies within the external boundary of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, can only flow through its outlet structures to the Animas River. (A small amount is delivered to a treatment plant for potable water for some residences near State Highway 141.)
For the Ute Mountain Utes, to the west, they could receive their water via the Animas River to the San Juan River, which flows to the southern portion of their reservation. But that would flow into New Mexico and open up water rights to the state and require a new compact be negotiated.
The Ute Mountain Utes have a very successful agriculture project using water from the Dolores River, and although the project could be expanded, there is no funding for a reservoir and infrastructure to add to it with Lake Nighthorse water.
Ute Mountain Utes Chairman Manuel Heart, shared the same frustration as did Cloud.
Representatives of the leadership of the two tribes were together at the college to participate in the screening of a recent 27-minute episode of The Colorado Experience by Rocky Mountain PBS titled, “The Ute Water Legacy,’’ a history of the Animas La Plata Project. View the film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w6ATXxmMx0.
The college’s Four Corners Water Center was a host, along with the Southwestern Water Conservation District and the Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District.
Being compensated for not using water has become a part of water conservation in the West. It’s in Colorado’s state water plan, and is taking place on a limited basis on the Front Range and in the San Luis Valley. Payments incentivize farmers to use less water, either through crop choice and better management or with more efficient delivery methods.
The current conundrum of the new fund that would pay for decreased water use by the tribes is that water rights have to be developed before they can be compensated, says the Bureau of Reclamation.
The Ute tribes have joined with other tribes, about 30, to say that they deserve to be paid for water they haven’t used – water that they didn’t receive with their lands beginning in the mid-1800s or water that they have but can’t use (the Utes, both).
That assertion is adding to the complexities attached to sharing the water in the Colorado River, a hundred years after its original compact.
Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper are advocating for the tribes with Congressional funding requests, but it’s fair to say that the amounts are much less than what might be needed for delivery systems and for past nonuse.
Thus, there are no conclusions, yet. Lake Nighthorse will remain full for the near future.
