IGNACIO, Colo.—The Southern Ute Indian Tribe is asking Colorado officials to stop a nearby town from polluting its water supply.
The Utes say effluent sent into Dry Creek from Bayfield is polluting its water supply in Ignacio. The tribe wrote to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment last week seeking intervention in the matter.
The Utes say Bayfield’s wastewater treatment plant discharges effluent into the creek, which flows onto Southern Ute land and into the Pine River. Town officials say they are doing everything possible to slow water pollution until a new wastewater treatment plant is built in eight to 10 months.
The tribe told state officials that efforts on its own to change Bayfield’s habits haven’t worked.
“The town does not intend to take actions and measures to assure that the pollution will not recur during 2009,” Southern Ute Tribal Council Chairman Matthew J. Box wrote in the letter dated Jan. 7.
Waiting for the new wastewater treatment plant, Box also said, is “not an option.”
The Durango Herald newspaper reported that the tribe and Bayfield have been in talks on possible solutions to the water problem already this year. Bayfield Town Manager Justin Clifton told the newspaper that the town is working fast to clean up conditions at the plant it took over in 2006.
Bayfield shuttered the troubled Bayfield Sanitation District and assumed its liabilities on Jan. 1.
“I want to state clearly, we respect the tribe’s position that they want a clean environment, a clean water supply. We want that too,” Clifton said.
He also said, “We have expounded countless resources trying to fix this problem.”
Michiko Burns, Water Quality Program Manager for the tribe, said that any delay is unacceptable to the Utes.
“No one seems interested in ensuring that this environmental problem is fixed. It’s degrading our water quality and impacting our wildlife,” Burns said.
Dave Akers, Clean Water Facilities Program Manager with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said state officials are working with Bayfield to clean up its water until a new plant is built.
Akers said the town is working toward fixing problems even before the new plant is built, but that if the problems are not corrected the state could sue Bayfield over the pollution.
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