Animas River (''On-e-mas''; ) is a river in the western

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, a tributary of the San Juan River, part of the Colorado River System. The river has experienced numerous catastrophes due to the mining nearby, the largest being the 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill.

Name

Spanish 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 of southeastern Colorado.

Watershed

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 ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

at the confluence of the West and North forks at the

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

of Animas Forks and flows south past the ghost towns of Eureka and Howardsville. At Silverton, the river flows into the Animas Canyon. The Durango and Silverton Narrow gauge railroad follows the river through the canyon to

Durango Durango, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Durango, is one of the 31 states which make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in the northwest portion of the country. With a population of 1,832,650 ...

. From Durango the river flows south into

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

through the town of

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

to its confluence with the San Juan River at Farmington. The only major tributary of the Animas River is the Florida River which converges just north of the Colorado–New Mexico border.

Indigenous peoples

The ancestral Puebloan site of Aztec Ruins National Monument 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 people, a Native American people of the Great Basin * Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Utah * Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah * Southern Ute Indian Tribe of the Southern ...

and

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

lands. The ruins contain the only fully reconstructed Anasazi Kiva, a ceremonial structure, in the US.

Engineering and development

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 tribal water rights claims associated with the Colorado Ute Settlement Act amendments of 2000. 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. A methane seep was reported on the river in

Durango, Colorado Durango is the home rule city 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 College ...

in 2016.

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 ...

s which arrive in the winter months to take advantage of the ice-free river. The Animas River is home to rainbow and brown trout, most of which originate from the Animas Trout fishery in Durango. The river is the native home to the mottled sculpin, a bottom-dweller that thrives in clean mountain streams.

2015 contaminants spill

In August 2015, the La Plata County Sheriff's Office closed the river to the public after a crew working for the EPA 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; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Like z ...

, and

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

, as well as the metals

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

and

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) 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 pinkish-orang ...

. 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." During an Oversight Committee on September 15, 2015, it was made public that the EPA was aware of the possible blowout of waste from the mine into the river but chose to work around the problem rather than fix it.

Recreation

Animas River between Cedar Hill NM and CO border

The Animas river is a major white water rafting 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 an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular ...

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 and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

, 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 native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada. Two ecological forms of brook trout h ...

. 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 occupational fishing activities done for profit; or subsistence fishing, ...

with artificial lures and

flies Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwin ...

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 order ...

occur in the winter and spring months. In late spring, summer and through fall the Animas sees

caddisfly The caddisflies (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 basis ...

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. In the town of Farmington, a 4-mile long trail that runs along the river from Berg Park to Animas Park was listed as a

National Recreation Trail The National Trails System is a series of trails in the United States designated "to promote the preservation of, public access to, travel within, and enjoyment and appreciation of the open-air, outdoor areas and historic resources of the Nati ...

in 2011. Tico Time, a resort/waterpark/concert venue opened in 2023, adding a plethora of activities to the Animas River waterfront.

Media

Films have been shot with the Animas River taking center stage. In ''

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' is a 1969 American Western (genre), Western buddy film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, k ...

'', Robert Redford and Paul Newman leap to safety into the Animas River, not far from Durango. In the film '' City Slickers'', the herd of cattle crosses the Animas River, followed by Billy Crystal rescuing a young calf from the river rapids. The film "The Naked Spur" starring James Stewart and Janet Leigh was filmed in the area, with a central scene taking place on the Animas River.

References

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) National Recreation Trails in New Mexico