by Kimberly Adams
LAS ANIMAS COUNTY — The Las Animas County Board of Commissioners received an update on the Purgatoire River Watershed Plan (PRWP) during their regular meeting Tuesday, April 7.
Karen Wolf made the presentation on the 167-page plan finalized in November 2014. Las Animas County is part of the watershed that expands from the New Mexico border northeast to Las Animas, Colo.
The Purgatoire River Watershed is encompassed into the Arkansas River Basin in Colorado.
There are eight major goals of the PRWP and Wolf said one of the projects in each goal category is either completed or is working towards completion. The categories include: improving water quality, increasing water quantity, manage healthy shrub and grasslands, mitigate invasive species, improve riparian and other watershed ecosystems, enhance recreational opportunities, public education, and maintaining an active watershed stakeholder group.
The Purgatoire Watershed Partnership has received grants for education and invasive species removal, Wolf reported. “We continue to stay afloat,” Wolf told the commissioners Tuesday.
Currently, the PWP is working on a source water protection plan and the removal of flowering plants Tamarisk and Russian Olive. Existing irrigation diversions are being assessed. The PWP are busy with implementing a CWPP (Community Wildfire Protection Plan) for the Stonewall Fire Protection District near Weston.
Other goals underway include trout habitat projects, improving river access and education including field tours of water infrastructures and public venues.
The PRWP includes the Las Animas County Noxious Weed Management Plan. The PWP is also working with the City of Trinidad with its trail and Greenway Master Plan while they continue to communicate with other local governments within the watershed with specific issues.
“The plan is a living document,” Wolf said at the meeting. It incorporates the Las Animas County Master Plan completed in 2001, and the City of Trinidad Comprehensive Plan completed in 2008. “The Las Animas County Master Plan found the majority of major wetlands in Las Animas County to be located within the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, and additional wetland areas surrounding the Model Reservoir on the Purgatoire River,” the document says.
The National Weather Service drought information statement for southwest Colorado and the Purgatoire River Watershed Plan indicates that continuing water deficits in spite of the amount of snow the area received this winter. “More precipitation will be needed to overcome the deficits experienced throughout the past several years extreme to exceptional drought,” the NWS report says.
Stream forecasts released Feb. 1 state the Cucharas River near La Veta is 62 percent of normal, according to a report on the Arkansas River Basin.
The PWP is based in Trinidad at 3590 E. Main Street. The PWP website is purgatoirepartnership.org. They can be reached by phone at (303) 503-8688 or by email to purgatoirewatershedpartnership@gmail.com. It is available for review online at HYPERLINK “http://purgatoirewatershed.org/“http://purgatoirewatershed.org.
The PWP will meet for its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, April 12 at 6 pm at the USDA Service Center located at 3590 E. Main Street in Trinidad. The meetings are open to the public.
