Ideas. Stories. Community.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Donate during KSJD's Spring Fund Drive and you could win a Super73 E-Bike! Click here to donate NOW.

Montezuma County Commissioner Suggests Privatizing Management of Narraguinnep Reservoir

Google Earth © 2017

Montezuma County Commissioner Larry Don Suckla raised the idea of privatizing management of Narraguinnep Reservoir Monday during a discussion with Matt Thorpe of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

The Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company, which owns Narraguinnep, has banned motorized boating there to try to keep the reservoir free of invasive mussels. Neither MVI nor Parks and Wildlife has money to do boating inspections, but Suckla said a private operator is interested in taking over the lake and doing them. Thorpe said CPW’s perpetual easement on the lake would have to be bought back and the agency would no longer stock it with fish. But he said CPW is willing to talk if the irrigation company is interested.

Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.