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| The Animas River flows near Rotary Park on Tuesday. The San Juan Citizens Alliance began talking about the rivers and streams flowing across Southwest Colorado 10 years ago with the River Program, bringing together diverse interests to collaborate on river management./Photo by Steve Eginoire |
Flow of ideas
San Juan Citizens’ river program marks 10 years of collaboration
by Tracy Chamberlin
The San Juan Citizens Alliance is all talk when it comes to the River Program. And for the past decade, they’ve made a difference doing just that.
The Alliance began talking about the waters flowing across Southwest Colorado 10 years ago, bringing different interest groups to one table for a conversation about river health, ecology, economics and recreation.
The San Juan Citizens Alliance is all talk when it comes to the River Program. And for the past decade, they’ve made a difference doing just that.
The Alliance began talking about the waters flowing across Southwest Colorado 10 years ago, bringing different interest groups to one table for a conversation about river health, ecology, economics and recreation.
“To support healthy communities and economies, we need to have healthy river systems,” said Wendy McDermott, River Program Director for the San Juan Citizens Alliance.
McDermott underscored two key themes every time she spoke about the River Program – diversity and collaboration.
The main goal of the program is focused on protecting the free-flowing rivers remaining in Southwestern Colorado. Opening the conversation up to different groups helps to facilitate the discussion and keep ecology part of it.
“It’s about relationships,” said Marsha Porter-Norton, facilitator for the River Protection Workgroup, one of the programs spawned from the Alliance’s work with water issues.
She called the River Program a focal point, serving as an umbrella for rivers in the region and giving all the interested parties a place to turn. Having one specific staff member that can consistently bring all the interests to the table is a key to keeping these conversations going.
“I certainly believe the program does a ton of work in the region,” Porter-Norton said.
The program began in the wake of the Animas-La Plata project. The controversy surrounding that project exposed a rift between river interests in Southwestern Colorado.
It certainly wasn’t all talk back then.
Construction of A-LP, a multi-purpose project for irrigation, municipal and industrial uses, was first authorized in 1968. However, several legal and political battles postponed it. Actual building didn’t begin until November 2001.
After a legal settlement was reached and construction was green-lighted, the San Juan Citizens Alliance began taking steps toward the realization of a river program.
“We were really stepping into the vacuum post Animas-La Plata,” said Kent Ford, who served on the Alliance’s Board of Directors for more than 10 years.
Ford said following the project’s approval, river proponents realized the need for a more proactive approach to future river advocacy and management.
It was uncharted territory for the Alliance, taking those first steps into water rights issues. And starting something new is always risky, Ford added.
The program was intended to foster a more collaborative vision of river protections across the county. From economic interests to conservation, everyone was invited to join the conversation.
“Therefore (the river’s) going to be an easier thing to protect in the future,” Ford said.
This approach made sure all the different stakeholders in the health of the river systems was represented. McDermott calls it the three-legged stool: ecology, agriculture and recreation.
Chuck Wanner was the first River Program Director. The former three-term City Council member in Fort Collins had the right political background for the job, helping get the conversation going.
Last fall, McDermott took over as the program’s director after eight years with the High Country Citizens Alliance in Crested Butte.
“I was impressed by the inclusive and community-based nature of the program,” McDermott said about her first impressions.
She said she was also impressed with her predecessors and the amount of time and patience put in to develop the program over the years. The program directors had to attend a lot of meetings and make a lot of contacts in order to keep the conversation going.
But that’s what makes it work.
Some of the programs that came out of the River Program include the River Protection Workgroup and the Dolores River Dialogue.
The workgroup is a community-driven project looking at the different rivers and streams in Southwest Colorado. It identifies values of these resources and makes management recommendations, while considering the environment, water development and water rights issues.
The Dolores River Dialogue is another coalition of diverse interests exploring management solutions that both support the health of the Dolores River and honor the different stakeholders.
McDermott is also a member of the Southwest Basin Roundtable, a statewide effort to promote the conversation about water management. It facilitates regional collaborations that look at water needs for human and environmental communities as they relate to water rights, water development and user needs.
Currently, McDermott is working on a watershed planning effort. The hope is to examine the different types and sources of pollution in the local watersheds and create a plan on how to handle the water quality issues affecting Southwest Colorado.
Threats to the future of the river continue to pop up, according to Ford. But that doesn’t mean he’s concerned.
“I have confidence that someone is looking out for the health of our rivers,” Ford said. “I did not have that confidence before.”
So when the brooks babble and the rivers run on and on, the Alliance’s program will let them speak.
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