{"id":69039,"date":"2017-08-04T09:27:10","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T15:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/river-protection-workgroup-disbands-over-disagreements\/"},"modified":"2017-08-04T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T15:27:10","slug":"river-protection-workgroup-disbands-over-disagreements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/river-protection-workgroup-disbands-over-disagreements\/","title":{"rendered":"River Protection Workgroup disbands over disagreements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

After more than a decade, the River Protection Workgroup, tasked with drafting a regionwide approach to land and river management in Southwest Colorado, has disbanded because members could not reach a compromise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWater in the West is complicated and there are many, many interests,\u201d said Marsha Porter-Norton, a facilitator for the group. \u201cI think people left in a civil way \u2026 and agreed to disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act was the River Protection Workgroup\u2019s greatest success. The act was signed into law in 2014, designating 37,400 acres as wilderness area and 70,600 acres as a Special Management Area north of Durango.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Porter-Norton\"
Porter-Norton<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The River Protection Workgroup was formed 10 years ago to draft legislation to present to Congress that would balance protecting the natural values of waterways in the region while allowing water development to continue.<\/p>\n

In 2007, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management released a draft forest management plan for Southwest Colorado. In it, a study identified several rivers and streams that qualified for a Wild and Scenic River designation.<\/p>\n

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers System was created in 1968 by Congress to \u201cpreserve certain rivers with outstanding natural, cultural and recreational values in a free-flowing condition for the enjoyment of present and future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Forest Service, by law, must identify which rivers are \u201csuitable\u201d for such a listing, a non-binding administrative label that carries some protections but serves as more of the agency\u2019s recommendation.<\/p>\n

An official Wild and Scenic Rivers designation would have to be passed through Congress through drafted legislation, usually pushed by a consensus of local, interested stakeholders.<\/p>\n

The study spanned a five-river system and its tributaries, which included the Animas River above Bakers Bridge, Hermosa Creek, the Los Pinos River and Vallecito Creek, the East and West forks of the San Juan River and the Piedra River.<\/p>\n

Durango-based environmental group San Juan Citizens Alliance proposed forming a workgroup to look at what sort of management plan may work for the region.<\/p>\n

Representatives from various interest groups partnered to form the River Protection Workgroup, including SJCA, the Wilderness Society, Trout Unlimited and the Southwestern Water Conservation District \u2013 the entity tasked with developing water resources in the Southwest basin.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, the group held up to 24 meetings in each river basin to get a sense of how nearby residents and water users would like to see the land and water managed.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s most notable success was in 2014, when after six years of negotiations, the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act was signed into law, designating 37,400 acres as wilderness area and 70,600 acres as a Special Management Area in the San Juan Mountains, north of Durango.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat act represented one of the most innovative ways of looking at managing lands in a watershed and is looked at as a model of coming together,\u201d Porter-Norton said. \u201cNot only in Colorado, but in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as negotiations came down to the wire, the group was unable to agree on a regionwide package.<\/p>\n

The Southwestern Water Conservation District offered to place Hermosa Creek on the Wild and Scenic list, which would have been the second river in Colorado to carry such a designation, but only if the other rivers were dropped from consideration.<\/p>\n

However, SJCA argued that Hermosa Creek is already highly protected through the 2014 act, and conservation efforts would be giving up a lot to have all those other segments taken out of the Wild and Scenic designation.<\/p>\n

The final blow was the language in the draft legislation concerning new water projects. SWCD agreed to no new \u201cmajor impoundments\u201d on the Animas and Piedra within a quarter mile of the river corridor.<\/p>\n

But conservation groups wanted more of a concrete definition of \u201cmajor impoundment,\u201d fearing there could be loopholes for large-scale construction projects, which could possibly affect the wild quality of the rivers.<\/p>\n

Trout Unlimited was on board with the deal, but SJCA and the Wilderness Society were ultimately unsatisfied.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons to do this (workgroup) was to avoid litigation,\u201d said Jimbo Buickerood of SJCA. \u201cBecause there was no concrete definition (of major impoundments), we didn\u2019t see it as progress, and that there could be litigation in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce Whitehead, executive director of SWCD, said it is the water district\u2019s responsibility to ensure existing and future water needs, and that some of the environmental group\u2019s demands would have conflicted with that mission. \u201cIt\u2019s critical for us to maintain those balances,\u201d Whitehead said. \u201c(The group) just kept coming back around and talking about the same issues, and eventually it ran its course.\u201d<\/p>\n

On May 19, members of the River Protection Workgroup dissolved.<\/p>\n

While the group wasn\u2019t able to achieve its intended goal with a region-wide plan, it does have the Hermosa Creek act to mark as a success, as well as years of studies and public input, Porter-Norton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be disappointing at times to not have produced a regional package, but they wanted something out there thoroughly vetted by the community,\u201d Porter-Norton said. \u201cThey just didn\u2019t get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, attempts to pursue a Wild and Scenic designation or even a regional approach to land management in Southwest Colorado are stalled, Whitehead said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re optimistic,\u201d Whitehead said. \u201cBut in the short term, there\u2019s probably not much moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Workgroup tried a regionwide approach to land, water management<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[738,28,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-69039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-environmental-issue","tag-headlines","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69039","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=69039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69039"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=69039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}