{"id":386653,"date":"2026-01-04T03:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T03:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386653\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T03:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T03:50:13","slug":"arkansas-valley-conduit-veto-draws-a-mixed-reaction-in-southeast-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386653\/","title":{"rendered":"Arkansas Valley Conduit veto draws a mixed reaction in southeast Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades, communities in southeastern Colorado have been waiting to get clean drinking water through the Arkansas Valley Conduit<\/a>, a proposed 130-mile pipeline from the Pueblo Reservoir stretching east to the town of Las Animas.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur wells are no good. It\u2019s a health problem,\u201d explained Kelly Clodfelter, president of Bent\u2019s Fort Water Authority in Otero County, which serves more than 327 customers. The water authority used to have deep water wells, but had to close them due to naturally occurring heavy metals in the water. \u201cWhat this water conduit is going to do is they\u2019re going to bring [potable] water.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project was first proposed during the Kennedy Administration to address water quality issues in the Lower Arkansas River Valley that range from high salt content and heavy metals to radionuclides, like radon and uranium, that occur naturally in the shale and are a health hazard and in violation of clean drinking water standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AVC will help us achieve compliance with EPA standards,\u201d said Rick Jones, superintendent of May Valley Water Association, which serves around 1,500 customers in Prowers County. \u201cSeveral of our water sources are out of compliance with the radionuclide levels that are currently set by the EPA.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other option would be to build their own treatment facility that they\u2019d have to maintain. Several years ago, before the AVC got momentum, it was something Jones looked into. \u201cWe really don\u2019t want to look at the alternatives now because they\u2019re probably 10 times as much as they were [from when we last looked].\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Chris Woodka, senior policy and issues manager with the Southeastern Water Conservancy District, 18 of the 39 participants in the project are under enforcement orders from the state for not meeting EPA standards for radionuclides.<\/p>\n

Several of the communities involved are located in Bent, Kiowa, Crowley and Otero counties, which have some of the lowest per capita incomes in the state, and, in turn, made financing the project difficult for decades, especially for an area of the state with a low, spread-out population.<\/p>\n

In 2009, then-President Barack Obama signed legislation that included a cost-sharing plan for the AVC that would require a 65 percent federal-35 percent local funding split, rather than have local communities foot all the cost. That got the ball rolling.<\/p>\n

During Trump\u2019s first term in office, his administration invested $28 million in 2020 towards construction. More federal funds were invested during the Biden administration, and the project finally broke ground in 2023, after the state and localities also raised funding.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision earlier this week to veto a bill<\/a> that would make it more affordable for local entities to pay their share came as a surprise to many.<\/p>\n

In his message, Trump said the bill would \u201ccontinue the failed policies of the past by forcing Federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project \u2014 a local water project that, as initially conceived, was supposed to be paid for by the localities using it. Enough is enough.\u00a0 My Administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Clodfelter read Trump\u2019s veto message, he was a little upset because the message seemed to say \u201call of Colorado is paying for it. No, they\u2019re not. The companies are paying for it. To get on this line, we\u2019ve already invested thousands and thousands of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wishes Trump officials would come to the area and talk to the small water companies and learn about the importance of these communities having quality water.<\/p>\n

But Cheraw Mayor David Howard thinks Trump has a point. Technically, his town is still part of the AVC project, but his town decided to replace its water treatment plant with a new type of system. It cost about $1.2 million. He doesn\u2019t think the project makes sense cost-wise.<\/p>\n

The bill Trump vetoed would extend the repayment period from 50 to 100 years, and Howard also doesn\u2019t think local leaders should be making that kind of commitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty hard for me to look at a 75-year loan to get to do our part for the system,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a single council member or mayor anywhere in the Arkansas Valley that\u2019s going to live another 75 years. So they\u2019re basically making decisions, you know, outside of their realm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, for many of the other communities and water entities, the AVC is the only economically viable plan to get clean drinking water to their customers.<\/p>\n

Woodka said that\u2019s why the vast majority of beneficiaries are sticking with the project, \u201cbecause they keep telling me that we\u2019re waiting for you to get down here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strong bipartisan support in the state and in Congress gives many hope that Trump\u2019s veto will not be the last word on the subject.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all the years it took for the AVC to get started and with construction underway, Jones is optimistic that it will get completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of naysayers, and you know when they started moving dirt and putting pipe in the ground, it’s like \u2018wow, you know this is gonna happen\u2019 and, and so now, yeah, everybody’s kind of planning on it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As for the veto?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a little bump in the road, but it might straighten out,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, communities in southeastern Colorado have been waiting to get clean drinking water through the Arkansas Valley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[115125,9045,192,74185,79,188098,188099,26724,282,15227],"class_list":{"0":"post-386653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-arkansas-valley-conduit","9":"tag-colorado-news","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-pueblo","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-southeast-colorado","14":"tag-southeastern-colorado","15":"tag-southern-colorado","16":"tag-water","17":"tag-water-use"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}