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Jurassic Pork
Animas-La Plata Water Project

$380 million

[ALP is the] last surviving dinosaur from the age of behemoth water schemes." U.S. News and World Report Editorial, 1995

This proposed dam project would siphon up to a quarter of the Animas River to provide water for southwestern Colorado. A project of the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation (BuRec), the original Animas-La Plata Water Project (ALP) would have cost an estimated $754 million to construct, with approximately $503 million in federal funding. In 1998, ALP's proponents, Representative Scott McInnis (R-CO) and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), introduced legislation authorizing a scaled-back version of the project that also encompasses the settlement of a Ute Tribe's water rights claim. This new version of the ALP project would cost an estimated $450 million, approximately $380 million of which would be contributed by federal taxpayers. However, like the old ALP, the new version would still threaten precious rivers, wildlife habitat, wetlands, and Native American burial sites.

Green Scissors Proposal
Reject the current Animas-La Plata proposal and fully deauthorize all of the facilities of the larger project, saving taxpayers at least $380 million. Adopt a non-structural alternative, such as better utilizing existing water storage and buying land and water rights on a "willing-seller" basis to satisfy Ute water rights claims. This alternative would allow less taxpayer money to go to non-Tribal project beneficiaries, such as local developers, and would also protect the environment.

Current Status

In order to gain Administration support for the project, Representative Scott McInnis (R-CO) and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) introduced legislation in the House and Senate called the Colorado Ute Settlement Act Amendments of 2000 (H.R. 3112 and S. 2508), which would authorize a scaled-back version of the original project. However, the legislation does not deauthorize the larger project, and could, consequently, allow the project's proponents to construct the old ALP in a piecemeal fashion in the future. This new version of ALP would force federal taxpayers to cover an even greater percentage of the project's estimated costs and would require federal taxpayers, rather than local water districts, to pay for cost overruns.

Furthermore, the legislation contains provisions intended to interfere with fair and full judicial review of ALP's compliance with critical federal environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act. In October 2000, S. 2508 passed the Senate after an amendment to the bill, introduced by Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI), to address some of the more blatant fiscal and environmental problems with the bill was defeated by a vote of 34 to 56. The legislation was then attached as a rider to the Labor-Health and Human Services Appropriations bill (H.R. 4577) in an effort to have it pass with as little scrutiny as possible in the House.

Project Hurts Taxpayers

According to a 1995 BuRec analysis of the old project, ALP's costs far outweigh benefits, returning only 36 cents for each dollar spent. Under the scaled-down version of ALP, federal taxpayers would assume about 89 percent of the project's costs - even more than the 68 percent they would have picked up for the entire original authorized ALP project.

The new legislation introduces a whole new class of federal subsidies by capping the cost of repayment for municipal water by local authorities and by diverting federal power revenues to subsidize many of the construction costs of the project. The project would also provide subsidized power to local municipal and industrial water users.

The project would increase salinity in the Colorado River, negating the millions of dollars federal taxpayers have already spent to reduce the river's salinity.

Project Hurts the Environment

According to Miller Ecological Consultants, the firm hired to conduct the biological assessments for the final EIS, the project's operation may affect the continued existence of two species of endangered fish - the razorback sucker and the Colorado pike minnow. The consultants also concluded that the project would adversely modify critical habitat in the San Juan River.

The project would critically drain the Animas River - one of the nation's most endangered rivers and one of the West's last free-flowing rivers - as well as the San Juan River. Both rivers are mainstays of the thriving multi-million dollar rafting industry. The project would also degrade the Animas River's Gold Medal trout fishery.

The project would destroy the Bodo State Wildlife Area, which provides critical winter habitat for mule deer and elk. It would also inundate Native American burial sites.

Contacts

• Jill Lancelot, Taxpayers for Common Sense, (202) 546-8500 x105.
• Joan Mulhern, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, (202) 667-4500.
• Dylan Norton, San Juan Citizens Alliance, (970) 259-8156.