Your recent article on Conservation Colorado’s so-called river report card (Journal, July 15) compels me to note that both sides of the “fish vs. farmers” debate as it pertains to the lower Dolores River ignores a rather large piece of the puzzle.
The entire McElmo Canyon drainage is dependent upon return flows from Dolores Project irrigators, such that any conservation measures that might provide some incremental benefit to the river ecology downstream of McPhee will pose a clear and present danger to the ecology (and the economy) of McElmo Canyon and to all its threatened and endangered species.
Report cards are cute, but the issues here are infinitely more complex.
Chuck Greaves
Cortez
