DENVER — Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Colorado Democrats, sent a letter to two federal agencies, registering their opposition to a Douglas County water project that intends to extract thousands of acre-feet of groundwater out of the San Luis Valley.
They also reminded the two federal officials about a 1992 law they said could allow the federal government to step in under certain conditions.
Bennet hand-delivered the letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Saturday, while she was in Granada for a roundtable with survivors of Camp Amache. The letter was also sent to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who has close ties to Colorado.
“After hearing concerns from our San Luis Valley constituents about this proposal for months, the district's letter from yesterday, and considering Colorado’s current exceptional drought, we both oppose this proposal,” wrote Bennet and Hickenlooper.
The letter from Bennet and Hickenlooper pointed to a 1992 law, known as the Public Law 102-575 or the "Wirth" amendment, that they said "provides a legal framework and elevated standard of environmental review for any transfer of groundwater out of the basin that may adversely affect public resources, such as the Great Sand Dunes National Park, Closed Basin Project, Baca National Wildlife Refuge."
>Read the full article at Colorado Politics.
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