{"id":30911,"date":"2023-10-31T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-passes-legislation-to-improve-water-shortages-in-colorado-southwest-region\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:29:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:29:57","slug":"house-passes-legislation-to-improve-water-shortages-in-colorado-southwest-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-passes-legislation-to-improve-water-shortages-in-colorado-southwest-region\/","title":{"rendered":"House passes legislation to improve water shortages in Colorado, Southwest region"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Water
Water from the Colorado River diverted through the Central Arizona Project fills an irrigation canal on Aug. 18, 2022, in Maricopa, Ariz. The Biden administration on Tuesday, April 11, 2023 released an environmental analysis of competing plans for how Western states and tribes reliant on the dwindling Colorado River should cut their use. (AP Photo\/Matt York, File)<\/span>Matt York<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The amendments, introduced by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, added to the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act redirect funding from the Department of Energy\u2019s Departmental Administration Account to the Colorado River Storage Project and Colorado River Dam Fund.<\/p>\n

The Colorado River Storage Project will receive $1 million in funding and $4 million in funding from the Colorado River Dam Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe West is in the midst of a serious water crisis that can no longer be overlooked,\u201d Boebert said in a news release.<\/p>\n

The Colorado River Compact signed in 1922 includes Arizona, California and Nevada, which make up the Lower Basin states. The Upper Basin states also included Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The river, which has been in a 23-year drought, supplies water to 40 million people and 29 Native American tribes, as well as parts of Mexico.<\/p>\n

Back in May, California, Nevada and Arizona agreed to significantly reduce the amount of water that they take from the Colorado River over the next three years. While cuts don\u2019t affect Colorado, the amendments passed with the recent Act would aid in critical water storage and could assist with dams in Southwest Colorado such as the Blue Mesa, Crystal and Morrow Point Dams.<\/p>\n

While Durango relies on water supply from the Florida and Animas Rivers, it also experiences issues with limited water storage capacity, with storage abilities of less than 10 days, according to Water Education Colorado.<\/p>\n

Research by the Silverton-based Mountain Studies Institute shows that annual precipitation has also significantly decreased over the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

whansen@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the Colorado River diverted through the Central Arizona Project fills an irrigation canal on Aug. 18, 2022, in Maricopa, Ariz. The Biden administration on Tuesday, April 11, 2023 released an environmental analysis of competing plans for how Western states and tribes reliant on the dwindling Colorado River should cut their use. (AP Photo\/Matt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28,367,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines","tag-u-s-rep-lauren-boebert","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30911","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=30911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81248,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30911\/revisions\/81248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30911"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}