By Al Pfister
The Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership (WEP) has been working for the past three years to identify the agricultural infrastructure, environmental, and recreational issues and needs of the Upper San Juan River. This endeavor has recently expanded into the Navajo and Blanco River drainages. These efforts are part of a community driven process being conducted under the Colorado Water Plan to determine how we can efficiently deal with our warming and drying climate.
In order to ensure this is truly a community driven effort, we need input from you, the community — those using the water in whatever capacity.
To that end, a Zoom meeting will be held today, Wednesday, March 31, from 5:30 to 7:30pm. The meeting will feature the Colorado Division of Water Resources discussing how they oversee the use of our waters; Pagosa Area and Water Sanitation District discussing their Drought Management Plan; Lotic Hydrological explaining the data they collected on the environmental (ecological) and recreational issues; and the San Juan Conservation District describing their data on the agricultural infrastructure needs of our local watersheds.
We need input from all water users on whether we have identified the issues and needs of the watersheds as you are experiencing them in your backyards and community. So please join us and provide your feedback on our efforts to date.
Please join our Zoom Meeting at https://zoom.us/j/92255114220?pwd=SHpGRDJ0c3NhMUFQcGhBZ291U1ZGUT09.
Dial-in details for the meeting, and additional details and reports associated with efforts to date, can be found at http://www.mountainstudies.org/sanjuan/smp. If you have questions, please contact Al Pfister at westernwildscapes@gmail.com or Mandy Eskelson at mandy@mountainstudies.org.
Hope to “see” you today, March 31 from 5:30 to 7:30pm.
Al Pfister is a coordinator with the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership.