{"id":66104,"date":"2020-02-29T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/key-stakeholders-emphasize-collaboration-at-western-water-event\/"},"modified":"2020-03-01T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-01T06:00:00","slug":"key-stakeholders-emphasize-collaboration-at-western-water-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/key-stakeholders-emphasize-collaboration-at-western-water-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Key stakeholders emphasize collaboration at Western water event"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=80f2ac8e-5211-414f-8761-10e3f139b7ca&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"445\" height=\"667\" alt=\"Glen Canyon Dam, on the Utah-Arizona border in 2017. About 30 million people depend on water from the Colorado River Basin.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Glen Canyon Dam, on the Utah-Arizona border in 2017. About 30 million people depend on water from the Colorado River Basin.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Getty Images\/National Geographic<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>What happens when key stakeholders in Southwestern water management come together at the same table? Competing uses and the need for collaboration become more clear, and the path to solutions becomes murky.<\/p>\n<p>Water managers in the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to seven states, 10 tribes and Mexico, have become increasingly concerned about drought after two major reservoirs, essentially water savings accounts, <a href=\"https:\/\/durangoherald.com\/articles\/239581\">ran low in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>At a Rocky Mountain PBS <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rmpbs.org\/events\/waterweek\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cWater Week\u201d<\/a>event, representatives from the Southern Ute Tribe, Durango Utilities Department, Southwest Water Conservation District and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation mulled the future of water in the West. They are preparing for less water and pushing for collaboration in a drier future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have 19th-century laws and 20th-century infrastructure that we\u2019re trying to use to solve 21st-century problems. I see that every day,\u201d said Susan Behery, a hydraulic engineer for the Bureau of Reclamation.<\/p>\n<p>Rocky Mountain PBS organized \u201cWater Week\u201d events to bring Colorado-based organizations and communities together to share resources, education and diverse perspectives about Western water issues. Wednesday\u2019s event, hosted by the Four Corners Water Center at Fort Lewis College, centered on an advanced screening of the Rocky Mountain PBS documentary \u201cWestern Water \u2013 and Power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The documentary covered the creation of the large infrastructure projects that control the Colorado River and its tributaries and the conflicts baked into the West, where the saying goes, \u201cWhiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1hlDRtgV62Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>About 30 million people depend on water from the Colorado River Basin. Lower Basin states \u2013 California, Nevada and Arizona \u2013 compete with Upper Basin states \u2013 Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. Within Colorado, the Western Slope and the Front Range continue to battle over water.<\/p>\n<p>One big player, however, was left out of the Rocky Mountain PBS film \u2013 and important negotiations over time: tribal nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was a little bit disheartened, but really not too surprised that tribes were actually left out of this whole conversation,\u201d said Lorelei Cloud, treasurer for the Southern Ute Tribal Council and former chairman for the Ten Tribes Partnership, which represents tribal interests in the Colorado River Basin.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, when the Bureau of Reclamation put together a supply and demand study, tribes were left out of the conversation. The tribal governments demanded the bureau put together a tribal water study, Cloud said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usbr.gov\/lc\/region\/programs\/crbstudy\/tribalwaterstudy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">That study showed<\/a> 10 tribes have rights to 2.8 million acre-feet of water. The Upper Basin states share 7.5 million acre-feet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor us to be left out of the conversations is actually devastating,\u201d Cloud said.<\/p>\n<p>The Southern Ute Tribe has senior, or first, water rights, dating to 1868.<\/p>\n<p>The tribes aren\u2019t using their full allocation of water, which means more downstream flow to users with junior claims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce those 10 tribes put their water to use, it\u2019s going to be devastating for those that are using the water right now. What are they going to do?\u201d Cloud said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a very impactful conversation when that situation happens. Having tribes at the table is very, very proactive for anybody, for any organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Durango also has senior water rights, but it would be impacted if Southern Utes used their full water allotment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven somebody with as senior water rights as the city of Durango might be playing a very different game,\u201d said Jarrod Biggs, Durango assistant utilities director.<\/p>\n<p>All the groups on the panel agreed collaboration will be fundamental to water management.<\/p>\n<p>Biggs said he sees efficiency measures and collaboration in the city\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing smarter with our water use will be crucial,\u201d he said. \u201cAlso, we aren\u2019t an island of ourselves. We have neighbors \u2026 and cooperating with our neighbors will become even more crucial to a drier future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Southern Ute government has its own drought contingency and water inventory plans. Tribes need to be at the table in 2026, when current operational guidelines expire and will be renegotiated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCollaboration is going to be key in the interim guidelines that\u2019s coming up,\u201d Cloud said. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be a competition, it has to be a collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:smullane@durangoherald.com\">smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Durango, Southern Utes share priorities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1462,402,1030,28,29,629,295,294],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-river","tag-drought","tag-environment","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe","tag-water","tag-water-supply"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66104","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=66104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66104"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}