A class of Fort Lewis College students are tapping into the momentum of an international “rights of nature” movement to bring water justice to the Animas River in Durango.
The students were scheduled to present a resolution acknowledging river rights for the Animas River to Durango City Council on Tuesday. In FLC professor Becky Clausen’s Water Justice class earlier that day, they were readying up for the presentation.
The class has spent about three months performing community outreach, studying government and policy, and researching rights of nature case studies to bolster their request for water justice on the Animas River.
In interviews on Tuesday, students described their project as a merger of sociology, natural resource management and political science.
FLC junior year student Charlotte Luth said her environmental studies are typically focused on scientific approaches to resource management, and the Animas River water justice project added a new social layer for her to consider.
“We can have this more ‘spiritual’ resolution along with really scientific, technical ways of managing natural resources,” she said.
She said 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of the Gold King Mine spill, which made international headlines and drew attention to the river when it turned the waters yellow.
“It made everybody pay attention to what’s going on in our waterway, and it’s a good time to bring that conversation back up,” she said.
Senior Juniper Lee said the Gold King Mine spill is a place to start the conversation about river rights, but the resolution expands into how people recreate along the river and what the river means to Indigenous tribes.
The proposed resolution recognizes four rights of the Animas River:
- The right “to flow free and flourish, with sufficient water quality and quantity to maintain ecosystem health.”
- The right to support and maintain essential watershed ecosystem functions such as “recharging groundwater, moving and depositing sediments, and providing adequate habitat for native plants and animals.”
- The right to be pollution-free and to maintain quality and native biodiversity.
- The right to river restoration and preservation.
The resolution also outlines the city’s stewardship and responsibilities:
- To consider the Animas River’s rights and how city actions impact the river, biodiversity, ecosystem health, and water quality and quantity.
- To recognize best practices to recognize river rights “so that Nature and future generations of humans may thrive together within the watershed.”
- To redress actions that would violate the river rights “unless such activities have a compelling social and ecological purpose.”
- To receive an annual report prepared by the FLC Four Corners Water Center about the state and health of the Animas River; the realization of its rights; and recommendations for furthering the river’s welfare and sustainability.
Junior Park Donnelly said about 80 survey respondents indicated they agreed with statements in the proposed resolution about keeping the Animas River free from pollution, that they have personal connections with the Animas River – through recreation or spiritual means, for example – and that they would appreciate annual reports on the status of the river.
Clausen, who teaches sociology and human services, described the water justice class assignment as a “community engaged research project.”
She said the 10th anniversary of the 2015 Gold King Mine spill, and the rising popularity of rights of nature around the world, felt like the right time to gauge the Durango community’s interest in the concept of granting natural ecosystems legal rights to exist and flourish.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes voted on Nov. 6 to recognize the personhood of the Colorado River, she said.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature likewise passed a motion recognizing river rights at the 2025 IUCN World Conservation Congress in October.
“We really want to think much broader about ‘what does justice mean?’ What does it look like in Indigenous systems? What does it look like – different forms of justice – beyond a law that you get punished if you break (it),” she said. “What is it about – justice? It’s about reciprocity and responsibility and accountability.”
Clausen said she told students not to get attached to how City Council ultimately addresses their proposed resolution. The assignment, she said, is more about the process than the end result.
cburney@durangoherald.com
