Lamar Lions Club hears about the importance of finishing the Arkansas Valley Conduit at recent meeting

Bill Long, President of Board of Directors for SECWCD speaks to Lamar Lions Club members

At the Lamar Lions Club meeting on February 11, the guest speaker was Bill Long, President of the Board of Directors for the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District (SECWCD). In addition to myself, also invited to the meeting were Lamar Mayor Kirk Crespin, Lamar City Administrator Mitch Hammes, Lamar Public Works Director Pat Mason, and County Land Use Administrator Michelle Hiigel.

The subject of Mr. Long’s talk was the controversial Arkansas Valley Conduit (AVC) and its importance to Southeastern Colorado. Long gave a brief history of the project, which was authorized by Congress in 1962 as part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, which had remained unbuilt because the economically-depressed local communities it would service could not afford the cost. These communities were originally responsible for 100% of construction costs. The conduit was designed to solve one of the biggest problems in the lower Arkansas Valley: a lack of clean drinking water. It would supply clean, potable water to 39 communities in southeast Colorado. Deep wells in the Arkansas River watershed are contaminated by naturally-occurring radioactive materials and shallow aquifers suffer from high levels of salinity and nitrates, as well as selenium and radium, both of which can cause severe health problems including bone cancer, heart attacks and lung issues if ingested in high amounts. The AVC would provide water from Pueblo Reservoir which would be moved through the Pueblo water board’s treatment plant for filtration.

In 2009, federal legislation (PL 111-11) introduced by Senator Michael Bennett, D-Colorado, reauthorized
construction of the AVC with a 65-percent federal share and 35-percent local share on costs. The legislation also allowed for Fryingpan-Arkansas Project miscellaneous revenues to fund and repay construction costs of the AVC. Grants and loans from state agencies, including the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority and the Colorado Water Conservation Board will assist with the construction of the spurs and delivery lines. At that time, the SECWCD began negotiating with the Bureau of Reclamation as to how to work together to build the trunk and spurs of the line to deliver water to the Arkansas Valley. In 2023, Congress directed $500M towards the pipeline and construction of the AVC began with a groundbreaking ceremony in April 0f 2024. It was expected to be completed in stages, with some areas seeing water by 2027 with the overall project expected to be completed by 2029. As of 2026, the estimated total cost of the AVC is approximately $1.3B, which has doubled from previous estimates due to inflation and design refinements.

Late in 2025, Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper successfully passed the bipartisan “Finish the Arkansas
Valley Conduit Act” (H.R. 131) through the Senate, aiming to finish the project. However, despite passing
with unanimous Senate support, the bill was vetoed by President Trump in December of 2025. This marks the first veto of any unanimously-passed bill. The veto was also surprising due to the enthusiasm for the AVC shown by the first Trump administration in 2020. At that time, $28M was provided towards
construction and President Trump himself came to Colorado to support the AVC at a campaign rally for
then-Senator Cory Gardner.

After the veto, Representative Lauren Boebert lobbied strongly for the continued support of H.R. 131 but
was not successful. The House vote fell 40 votes short of the required two-thirds majority to override the
veto, with only 35 Republicans voting for it, despite the bill’s previous unanimous passage. Boebert expressed disappointment and surprise at the lack of support from her GOP colleagues for the project, which she argued was “completely non-controversial”, adding “Folks are afraid of getting a mean tweet or attacked and I came here to deliver for my constituents” saying that she would use her frustration as motivation to get the bill over the finish line in another way. The bill did not seek any additional federal funding, but merely extended the 50-year repayment to 75 years and lowered the interest rate from 3% to 1.5%. The legislation also would have allowed the project to be classified as one of hardship, which may have allowed the Bureau of Reclamation to forgive some loan payments if a case for hardship could be made.

To date, 12 miles of the trunkline has been completed, Long said. Also completed are two spur lines south to Avondale and Boone. The Bureau of Reclamation has the water treatment plant under construction and the bid process for the next segment of the pipeline will be announced soon. Currently, there is enough money left from the $500M appropriated by Congress in 2023 to continue building for another three to five years, Long added. That means the pipeline should eventually reach Rocky Ford. “It’s when we get to the second half of the project where it will be challenging to build and repay our portion of the debt” he said. “Without this legislation, there will be a point where we will have to stop”.

The lack of rainfall and current snowpacks this year are deeply concerning. In an average year, Long said, the SECWCD imports approximately 60,000 acre/feet of water from the west slope for usage in the SECWCD, but that 15,000 acre/feet are lost due to “transit loss” including evaporation, another problem that would be eliminated for the lower Arkansas Valley with the AVC. He added that having adequate, clean water is essential for growth in our area. This growth is something that both the City of Lamar and Prowers County are aggressively pushing for. Both entities have stressed that they need improved infrastructure to make this possible.

Leroy Mauch, left, and Bill Long

Lions Club member and Chairman of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District Leroy Mauch told the audience at the meeting “This is scary and something I’ve not seen in my lifetime” referring to the drought the area is and will be suffering without the needed rainfall and snowpack runoff. “The next 60 days are critical” he continued. “This project (the AVC) is our only hope”.

By: Barbara Crimond