{"id":32652,"date":"2023-07-28T22:29:32","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T04:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-upper-colorado-and-san-juan-river-basins-are-one-step-closer-to-further-protection\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:01:19","slug":"the-upper-colorado-and-san-juan-river-basins-are-one-step-closer-to-further-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-upper-colorado-and-san-juan-river-basins-are-one-step-closer-to-further-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins are one step closer to further protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3cb84fd5-638a-5ea2-aaca-2b08a22adf4f&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" alt=\"The Colorado River a few miles upstream from Palisade near Cameo on Aug. 27. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The Colorado River a few miles upstream from Palisade near Cameo on Aug. 27. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The bill to reauthorize the Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins\u2019 Endangered Fish Recovery Programs is one step closer to further protect four endangered fish species and providing long-term security for 1,200 Colorado water and power projects.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, HR 4595, received a hearing Thursday in the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries. It is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican representing Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat from Colorado, sponsored the Senate bill, SB2247.<\/p>\n<p>When the recovery programs were introduced in 1988 and 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the fish were heading toward extinction. Since the programs were placed in effect, they have protected four endangered fish \u2013 humpback chub, bonytail, Colorado pikeminnow, and razorback sucker \u2013 found only in the Colorado River basin.<\/p>\n<p>With the help of states, tribes, environmental groups and local communities, the humpback chub and razorback sucker revived their populations, where the chub was downlisted from endangered to threatened and the razorback is recommended to be downlisted.<\/p>\n<p>Extending the recovery program another seven years would further protect the fish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have adapted our current practices and modified our historic water projects to mitigate impacts on these native fish and made new investments to aid in their recovery to self-sustaining populations,\u201d said Ken Curtis, general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District. \u201cMeasurable progress has been made toward recovery. Now, we can\u2019t afford to leave this work unfinished and risk losing control of our water that underpins and grows our local economies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bill simultaneously provides appropriate administration for water delivery and hydropower projects. Expanding the bill for seven years would help assist 1,200 water projects that support Colorado cities, tribes and farmers.<\/p>\n<p>The program supports water delivery from the Navajo, Flaming Gorge and Aspinall Unite reservoirs. Together they store more than 6.5 million acre-feet of water as part of the Colorado River Storage Project, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation\u2019s Statement for the Record issued July 27.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese projects, including 1,200 in Colorado alone, provide water for local municipalities, tribes, major reservoirs, agricultural, ski areas, power generation facilities, and others that use more than 3.69 million acre-feet of water per year,\u201d Boebert said in a news release. \u201cI look forward to my bipartisan bill that has support in the Senate and from the administration being signed into law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hearing advances Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32652","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=32652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81876,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32652\/revisions\/81876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32652"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}