2025
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Rocky Mountain Plains • Durango County, Colorado
Animas-La Plata Archaeology Project
SWCA conducted an extensive multi-year program of cultural resources mitigation for the A-LP project which involved the construction of a reservoir to store water from the Animas River.
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Albuquerque
7770 Jefferson Street NE
Suite 410
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87109
Suite 410
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87109
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Description
SWCA completed a large, multi-year cultural resources mitigation project for the Animas-La Plata project, located primarily in Ridges Basin and on Blue Mesa. This project was centered on the proposed construction of a reservoir for the purpose of storing water extracted from the Animas River. Cultural resources in the project area primarily included ancestral Puebloan sites, which are approximately 1,200 years old, and historic-period sites, including the Old Ute Trail. A total of 74 archaeological sites were excavated, coordinating with construction schedules to allow construction of vital dam, road, and pipeline facilities to commence. Using sophisticated methods of archaeological documentation and excavation, SWCA archaeologists recovered a great deal of valuable information from these sites, while allowing complex construction activities to proceed unhindered. SWCA worked closely with the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation to assist with their tribal consultation responsibilities, collaborating with the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes, Acoma Pueblo and other consulting Tribes and Pueblos. As the City prepares to manage recreation at Lake Nighthorse, SWCA’s unique familiarity with the cultural landscape of Ridges Basin, as well as our long-standing relationships with Reclamation, SUIT, and UMUT, will be critical to successfully balancing recreational needs with cultural resources protection.
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Animas-La Plata: The Water Project That Spanned Generations
The Animas–La Plata Project (ALP) is located in La Plata and Montezuma Counties in southwestern Colorado and in San Juan County in northwestern New Mexico. Often called the “last big water project in the West,” Animas–La Plata is celebrating several milestones this year.
This May marks 10 years since the completed Lake Nighthorse reservoir near Durango began filling. To get to that point, the project survived decades of planning, collaboration, public interest, plus financial and regulatory roadblocks. Its success is due in large part to the tenacity and cooperation between tribal governments, as well as between tribes and the federal government. It’s also been a decade since SWCA completed work for the ALP.
SWCA was honored to be a part of the ALP story, having run a multi-year, multi-million-dollar archaeology project under contract with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, cooperating with the tribe, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, backhoe subcontractors, and coordinating closely with Weeminuche Construction Authority. In light of these milestones, we wanted to look back at this landmark project and what it taught us about cultural resources investigations and water management in the West.
