Water District Boards Tour ALP Project
On June 22, 2009, members of the PAWSD and San Juan Water Conservancy District Boards and staff toured the Animas-La Plata (ALP) Project in Durango. The two-hour tour provided the Board members with valuable information, perspective and insight into their own Dry Gulch Reservoir planning process.
The planning and building of this reservoir project has taken over a century. The plans for the ALP project were first discussed in 1886, with plans first drawn up in 1906. In 1968, Congress authorized the project and in 2000, out-going President Clinton signed authorization for project funding.
Over the last century, the ALP project hit several stumbling blocks in the form of several lawsuits. In 1988, the Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Settlement Act was signed into law. In 1990, the day after the groundbreaking for the project, a cease and desist court order was filed on environmental grounds. The project finally began construction in 2001 and is currently 98% complete.
There are four major components to the ALP project:
- Intake structure and pump station;
- Inlet pipeline;
- Ridges Basin Dam and Lake Nighthorse;
- Potable water distribution line from the City of Farmington to Ship Rock to serve the Navajo Reservation.
Intake Structure and Pump Station
The tour began at the intake on the Animas River (pictured above and right). There is no pump or diversion structure on or across the river itself; water from the river flows hydraulically into the intake, and is then pumped through a trash screen to the inlet pipeline. The eight pumps, shown below, have the capacity to operate at 280 cubic feet per second. At this capacity, an Olympic-sized swimming pool could be filled in five minutes.
At the time of the tour, the pumps had been, and were still, running at full capacity for the prior three weeks. The reservoir had filled to approximately 13,000 Acre-Feet in that period of time.
Inlet Pipeline
The raw water is pumped 2.1 miles through a pipe from the pump station to the reservoir inlet (pictured right). Over the course of the 2.1 miles, the water rises 550 feet in elevation. As a comparison, this is the same height as the Washington Monument. A special structure is in place that, should the pumps fail, would allow retreating water to burst and escape prior to hitting and destroying the pumps.
Ridges Basin Dam and Lake Nighthorse
The reservoir has a capacity of 120,000 Acre Feet, with an active storage (the amount of water that can be used for municipal and industrial purposes) of 90,000 Acre Feet. 98% of the water stored in this reservoir will be used to satisfy the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Indian Nations' water rights claim on the Colorado River. Two percent of the water is dedicated to the Navajo Nation.
The picture of the reservoir basin, above, was taken at the reservoir inlet. Everything in the picture will be inundated at full capacity. The picture of the reservoir basin, left, was taken from the top of the Ridges Basin dam. At full capacity the water line will be at the treeline.
The ALP project operation is overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR). The project site, owned by the BOR, is 5,444 acres. The BOR is open to contracting with an entity to manage a recreation component on the site, but the BOR itself is not authorized to manage recreational activities. However and proactively, the BOR did obtain $3 million in funding to construct a boat ramp, visible on the far side of the lake in the picture above. The ramp was constructed prior to filling the reservoir. At the tiem of the tour, no entity had come forward to manage recreation.
Navajo Nation Municipal Pipeline
This element of the project has not been completed. Once completed, the 24-inch treated water distribution line will extend 29 miles from the City of Farmington, where the water from the reservoir will be treated, to Ship Rock, NM.
As of the date of this tour, the total project cost was $560 Million.
For further information on the ALP Project, please visit the project website at http://www.usbr.gov/uc/progact/animas/
