Arkansas Valley Conduit reaps benefits
of infrastructure bill, promising clean water
A total of $250 million in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has been dedicated to the Arkansas Valley Conduit, authorized in 1962 and finally under construction. An additional disbursement is expected this fall from the Bureau of Reclamation.
“The commitment of Reclamation to this project is only matched by the support it has from our Colorado congressional delegation. Both are fighting to deliver clean drinking water to 50,000 people living in the Lower Arkansas Valley of Colorado,” said Christine Arbogast, president of Kogovsek & Associates. The firm represents the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, the local sponsor of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. The conduit is the final element of the Fry-Ark.
The project is made necessary by the naturally-occurring presence of radionuclides in the groundwater, the primary drinking water source for the region. It’s estimated cost has now exceeded $1 billion.
“The District is collaborating with many agencies state and federal, as well as our congressional delegation, to make the project as affordable as possible. This is not a project intended to promote growth or create recreation venues; it is a project to protect the health of 50,000 people living in the poorest part of Colorado by providing them with safe drinking water, as the federal government mandates,” Arbogast said.
Reclamation’s leader visits Ute Mountain Ute Tribe
Commissioner of Reclamation Camille Touton, accompanied by Senator Michael Bennet, spent a day with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, including a tour of the Tribe’s Farm & Ranch Enterprise.
Ute Mountain Ute Chairman, Manuel Heart, previously requested a consultation with the Commissioner in an effort to finalize the Tribe’s repayment contract on the Animas-La Plata Project, the fulcrum of the Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Settlement. The consultation concluded a day at the tribal farm and its mill and a robust discussion of potential tribal water resource projects, including a regulating reservoir at the end of the Towaoc canal, which delivers water to the production fields.
Kogovsek & Associates, Inc. has represented the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe since 1985, and among its successes includes obtaining $18 million in funding to build the original Farm & Ranch Enterprise infrastructure. It has been a very successful business venture, and has been highly recognized including receiving the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Legacy Farm Award.
Also accompanying the Commissioner was Upper Colorado River Regional Director Wayne Pullan, who has developed a close working relationship with Ute Mountain Ute.
“Working with Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper and the Bureau, Ute Mountain Ute has successfully managed water challenges, including a severe drought two years ago. The government-to-government relationship they employ has and will continue to yield results for the Tribe and the Towaoc community,” Christine Arbogast, Kogovsek & Associates’ president said.
Colorado Ute Settlement Act, through today’s lense
With water on the minds of many, and in the news media a lot, Rocky Mountain Public Television produced a documentary on the Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Settlement and where its implementation stands today.
Christine Arbogast of Kogovsek & Associates appeared in the 30-minute piece, which you can watch by clicking HERE. “The huge fight for this settlement centered around construction of a storage reservoir, which was vehemently opposed by every national environmental group at the time,” she said. “But the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribes remained adamant that a supply of water, not just a paper water right and money in the bank, was worth the fight. They ultimately won.”
The documentary includes a discussion by tribal leaders about what lacked in the final settlement: a delivery system to their lands for the municipal and industrial water they were awarded. “The original 1988 settlement was amended in 2000, when the price tag of it began to cost us votes,” Arbogast said. She and her late partner Ray Kogovsek were the lobbyists for the two Tribes and their non-tribal partners. “It prohibited use of the water for agriculture and removed the expensive conveyance feature which would have moved the water to the West where both Tribes have lands.
“But what it did do was assure the Tribes an infinite wet water supply that they will someday fully develop, and assured their non-tribal neighbors use of water they had historically used,” Arbogast explained.
The documentary was recently aired on PBS and live at Fort Lewis College in Durango.
Opinion: We're running out of water.
It's time to overhaul Colorado's storage system
Read the piece here opinion