We held the first stakeholder meeting in early 2007. Twenty
entities attended, which included folks from both states, both
Ute tribes, Durango, Farmington, Trout Unlimited, Animas River
Stakeholder Group, San Juan Watershed Group, Mountain Studies Institute,
San Juan Public Lands, Animas River Keepers, San Juan Water Commission
and the Alliance.
Data from the combined sampling efforts was presented along with a basin-wide GIS map that includes the sampling points and the data for each point. The map also includes layers for geologic formations, governmental boundaries, ecotypes, land ownership and many others.
This is the only community stakeholder group in Colorado or New
Mexico that is formed around a complete basin, without regard for
political boundaries. In this effort, we have insisted on the treatment
of the whole river and the community of stakeholders within the
basin as a unit and created recognition that this type of action
is a proper way to come together to manage that resource. |
coordinate the effort. We sampled
for three years for factors that reflect the amount of nutrients
in the river. Many of the larger stakeholders on the river contributed
time and money to sample and coordinate the effort. We now have
processed our results and combined them with data from most of
the other sampling that has been done in the past. This data
is being included in a multi-layered GIS map that will make it
easy to use the data in to analyze the condition of the river.