Animas River (''On-e-mas''; es, Río de las Ánimas) is a river in the western
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, a tributary of the
San Juan River, part of the
Colorado River System.
The Animas-La Plata Water Project was completed in 2015. The project pumps water over a low pass to fill a reservoir,
Lake Nighthorse, in Ridges Basin to satisfy
Southern Ute
The Southern Ute Indian Reservation (Ute dialect: Kapuuta-wa Moghwachi Núuchi-u) is a Native American reservation in southwestern Colorado near the northern New Mexico state line. Its territory consists of land from three counties; in descendin ...
tribal water rights claims associated with the Colorado Ute Settlement Act amendments of 2000.
Name
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
explorer
Juan Maria de Rivera of
Santa Fe recorded the name "Rio de las Animas" (in English, River of Souls) in 1765. One theory is that the full name of the river was once "Rio de las Animas Perdidas" (River of Lost Souls) commemorating people who died in the river. A handful of commentators (3) have suggested that the origin of this river's name is confused name with the
Purgatoire River
The Purgatoire River ( es, Río Purgatorio) is a river in southeastern Colorado, United States. The river is also known locally as the Purgatory River or the Picketwire River. ''Purgatoire'' means Purgatory in French. French trappers named the ri ...
of southeastern Colorado.
Watershed
![Animas River Bridge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Animas_River_Bridge.jpg)
The Animas River rises high in
San Juan Mountains
The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...
of
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
at the confluence of the West and North forks at the
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
of
Animas Forks
Animas Forks is a ghost town located twelve miles (19 km) northeast of Silverton in San Juan County, Colorado, United States. The area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. At over 11,000 feet, Animas Forks is one of the highest mi ...
and flows south past the ghost towns of
Eureka
Eureka (often abbreviated as E!, or Σ!) is an intergovernmental organisation for research and development funding and coordination. Eureka is an open platform for international cooperation in innovation. Organisations and companies applying th ...
and
Howardsville. At
Silverton, the river flows into the
Animas Canyon
Animas may refer to:
Places United States
* Animas River, Colorado
* Animas, New Mexico, a census-designated place
* Animas Valley, New Mexico
** Animas Creek, an intermittent stream in New Mexico
* Animas Mountains, New Mexico
* Animas Forks ...
. The
Durango and Silverton Narrow gauge railroad follows the river through the canyon to
Durango
Durango (), officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Durango; Tepehuán: ''Korian''; Nahuatl: ''Tepēhuahcān''), is one of the 31 states which make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in ...
. From Durango the river flows south into
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
through the town of
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
to its confluence with the San Juan River at
Farmington
Farmington may refer to:
Places Canada
*Farmington, British Columbia
* Farmington, Nova Scotia (disambiguation)
United States
*Farmington, Arkansas
*Farmington, California
*Farmington, Connecticut
*Farmington, Delaware
* Farmington, Georgia
* ...
. The only major tributary of the Animas River is the
Florida River
Florida River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 21, 2011 tributary of the Animas River in La Plata County, Colorado.
The river's source is Lillie Lake in the W ...
which confluences just north of the Colorado–New Mexico border.
A
methane seep
A cold seep (sometimes called a cold vent) is an area of the ocean floor where hydrogen sulfide, methane and other hydrocarbon-rich fluid seepage occurs, often in the form of a brine pool. ''Cold'' does not mean that the temperature of the see ...
was reported on the river in
Durango, Colorado
Durango is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of La Plata County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 19,071 at the 2020 United States Census. Durango is the home of Fort Lewis Coll ...
in 2016.
Indigenous peoples
The ancestral Puebloan site of
Aztec Ruins National Monument
The Aztec Ruins National Monument in northwestern New Mexico, USA consists of preserved structures constructed by the Pueblo Indians. The national monument lies on the western bank of the Animas River in Aztec, New Mexico, about northeast of F ...
is situated along the river in the present day town of Aztec and for much of its course the river flows through native
Ute
Ute or UTE may refer to:
* Ute (band), an Australian jazz group
* Ute (given name)
* ''Ute'' (sponge), a sponge genus
* Ute (vehicle), an Australian and New Zealand term for certain utility vehicles
* Ute, Iowa, a city in Monona County along ...
and
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
lands.
Engineering and development
Numerous irrigation ditches serve the surrounding farmland along the river. The Durango Pumping Plant, completed in 2011, as part of the
Animas-La Plata Water Project, draws an average annual of 57,100 acre-feet from the river, for storage in Lake Nighthorse.
Wildlife and plants
The Animas serves as habitat to resident and migratory
bald eagle
The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...
s which arrive in the winter months to take advantage of the ice-free river.
2015 contaminants spill
![Animas River spill 2015-08-06](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Animas_River_spill_2015-08-06.JPG)
In August 2015, the La Plata County Sheriff's Office closed the river to the public after a crew working for the
EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
released approximately 3 million gallons of mine waste into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas. The plug was accidentally removed while investigating a leak at the abandoned
Gold King Mine. The mine was last active in the 1920s, but it had been leaking toxic water at a rate of 50 to 250 gallons a minute for years. The spill contained the toxic metals
arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...
,
cadmium
Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Like zinc, it demonstrates oxidation state +2 in most of ...
, and
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
, as well as the metals
aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...
and
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
.
There may be other toxic heavy metals in the plume.
The spill changed the color of the river to orange, and the spill was described as "devastating" by Kim Stevens, the director of
Environment Colorado, who said that businesses who rely on the river for profit might have to close down.
The river's fish population might also be at risk due to the toxic waste that now runs through the river.
[
In February 2016, the Associated Press reported that the spill "dumped 880,000 pounds of metals" into the Animas River, and that "most of the metals settled into the riverbed." The metals considered are "cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, zinc, and possibly others."
]
Recreation
The Animas river is a major white water rafting
Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...
attraction accounting for 8.9% of Colorado's commercial rafting market while annually generating 45,411 commercial user days and direct expenditures of $5,207,033 (2011 est).
The Animas is a freestone fishery well populated with rainbow
A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...
, brown
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...
, Colorado River cutthroat, and brook trout
The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae. It is native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada, but has been introduced elsewhere ...
. It is considered a gold medal fishery above Rivera Bridge Crossing in Colorado. Recreational fishing
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing ...
with artificial lures and flies
Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...
on the Animas is available year-round due to moderate winter weather. Insect hatches of aquatic diptera and mayflies
Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the orde ...
occur in the winter and spring months. In late spring, summer and through fall the Animas sees caddisfly
The caddisflies, or order Trichoptera, are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the b ...
and mayfly hatches as well as terrestrials such as grasshoppers. Animas trout average . Larger trout in the are occasionally caught by anglers. Brown trout as large as have been caught in the Animas.
See also
* List of rivers of Colorado
This is a list of streams in the U.S. State of Colorado.
__TOC__
Alphabetical list
The following alphabetical list includes many important streams that flow through the State of Colorado, including all 158 named rivers. Where available, t ...
* List of rivers of New Mexico
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
* List of tributaries of the Colorado River
The principal tributaries of the Colorado River of North America are the Gila River, the San Juan River, the Green River, and the Gunnison River.
Tributary tree
The following is a tree demonstrating the points at which the major and minor trib ...
* Animas-La Plata Water Project
* Lake Nighthorse
References
Further reading
* Thompson, Jonathan. (2015). "When our river turned orange" igh Country News
* Desborough, G.A. and D.B. Yager. (2000). ''Acid-neutralizing potential of igneous bedrocks in the Animas River headwaters, San Juan County, Colorado'' .S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 00-165 Reston, VA: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.
* Nash, T. (1999). ''Geochemical investigations and interim recommendations for priority abandoned mine sites, BLM lands, upper Animas River watershed, San Juan County, Colorado'' .S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 99-323 Reston, VA: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.
* Yager, D.B. et al. (2003). ''Ferricrete, manganocrete, and bog iron occurrences with selected sedge bogs and active iron bogs and springs in the upper Animas River watershed, San Juan County, Colorado'' iscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2406 Denver: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.
External links
River Reach Foundation
City of Durango-Animas River
{{authority control
Rivers of Colorado
Rivers of New Mexico
Tributaries of the Colorado River in Colorado
Tributaries of the Colorado River in New Mexico
Rivers of San Juan County, New Mexico
Rivers of La Plata County, Colorado
Rivers of San Juan County, Colorado
Old Spanish Trail (trade route)