{"id":15104,"date":"2025-12-22T16:01:37","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T23:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-river-conservation-act-clears-senate-committee\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:33:15","slug":"dolores-river-conservation-act-clears-senate-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-river-conservation-act-clears-senate-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores River conservation act clears Senate committee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A portion of the Lower Dolores River Canyon is included in a proposed National Conservation Area. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 The Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Area Act passed a Senate committee last week with bipartisan support.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, the bill would protect water resources and Outstandingly Remarkable Values \u2013 features that qualify rivers for Wild and Scenic designation \u2013 while safeguarding water rights, private property and Dolores Project allocations. It also proposes an alternative to Wild and Scenic designation.<\/p>\n

The Dolores Project, a Bureau of Reclamation initiative, supplies water for agriculture, municipalities, recreation and wildlife in the Upper Colorado Basin using McPhee Dam.<\/p>\n

Montezuma and La Plata county commissioners have urged<\/a> Rep. Jeff Hurd, R-Colo., to introduce a House version of the bill. They called the legislation \u201cone of the most extensive and inclusive collaborative efforts in Colorado\u2019s public lands history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill, which last week cleared the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, cannot become law unless a House version also passes. In 2023, Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced the House companion while representing CD-3.<\/p>\n

Hurd\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\"Bennet\"
Bennet<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019m very glad that Dolores NCA passed out of the committee out of the Senate with Sen. Lee as chair, and I will consult with Congressman Hurd and others to do whatever it is we can to try to get it over the finish line in 2026,\u201d Bennet told The Durango Herald. \u201c<\/em>I\u2019m just thrilled that it passed the committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than two dozen stakeholder groups, and local and tribal governments have sent letters<\/a> of support to Bennet. This marks the second time the bill passed out of the Senate committee unanimously.<\/p>\n

A proposed act has been discussed for years. The Lower Dolores Plan Working Group formed in 2008 to study issues in the Dolores River corridor.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouthwestern Coloradans care deeply about the Dolores River,\u201d Hickenlooper said in a statement. \u201cLeaders on the ground have spent years deciding how to best protect and invest in the Dolores. We worked with them side by side to design a bipartisan bill to preserve this landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abigail Hatting is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a senior at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ahatting@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bennet, Hickenlooper bill still needs House sponsor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,28,194,193,1651,994,1125,25],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-headlines","tag-land-resources","tag-land-use","tag-sen-john-hickenlooper","tag-trueanthem","tag-u-s-house-rep-jeff-hurd","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20920,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104\/revisions\/20920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15104"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}