A conversation last week with the Bureau of Reclamation yielded positive results for the Arkansas Valley. “I think they are starting to understand the significance of what we are trying to do, and listening to the Secretary of Interior,” Jim Broderick, director of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District told the board Thursday. Broderick went to Billings, Mont., last week to meet with Mike Ryan, regional director for Reclamation, and other officials. He took a list of about 20 issues that have been of concern to the district in recent years. It’s a new era of cooperation for the district, which has had an often placid, but sometimes stormy relationship with Reclamation in the past. A large part of the credit for the thaw belongs to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Broderick said.

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