Cañon City
| Contacts: | Cass Cairns 719-269-8553 |
ARRA Funds Will Replace Park Center Well
Cañon City, Colo. – The Bureau of Land Management has received funding to drill a replacement Park Center Well as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A complete list of the ARRA projects funded through BLM Colorado is available online at www.recovery.doi.gov or http://recovery.doi.gov/press/bureaus/bureau-of-land-management/.
The Park Center Well is an 80-year-old artesian well located on BLM–administered lands near Cañon City, Colorado. The well supplies water for domestic and fire suppression uses to approximately 4,000 users in the Park Center Water District. The BLM learned in 2008 that the 3,000 foot deep well had developed serious leaks in the casing.
According to RGFO Manager Roy Masinton, “the BLM will coordinate the plugging of the old well with the drilling of the new one to minimize impacts to local water users. This should be possible unless the old well fails.”
The original well was drilled in the 1920s for oil and gas exploration, and then abandoned when drillers hit water instead of fluid minerals. The BLM later acquired ownership of the well. The BLM holds a Federal Reserve water right for 227-acre feet of water annually. The BLM leases the well water to the Park Center Water District through an agreement with the BLM Royal Gorge Field Office.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, recreational and other activities on BLM-managed land contributed more than $130 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 600,000 American jobs. The Bureau is also one of a handful of agencies that collects more revenue than it spends. In FY 2012, nearly $5.7 billion will be generated on lands managed by the BLM, which operates on a $1.1 billion budget. The BLM's multiple-use mission is to sustain the health and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Bureau accomplishes this by managing such activities as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, mineral development, and energy production, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on public lands.