Water Group Honors Don Ament
By Chris Woodka, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.
Jan. 26–DENVER — Former Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture Don Ament was honored Friday by the Colorado Water Congress with its top award.
Ament received the 2008 Aspinall Water Leader of the Year Award at the conclusion of the 50th convention of Water Congress.
“Each one of you makes sacrifices,” Ament told the group. “I’m humbled, grateful and thankful to all of you who devote your time.”
Ament was surprised with family members who attended the luncheon as former state Rep. Lew Entz recapped his life.
Entz showed a photo of a tree that had grown through a tractor on Ament’s Northeastern Colorado farm.
“If (former) Gov. (Bill) Owens had seen this, Don, and what kind of a farmer you were, you might not have been appointed,” Entz joked.
Ament served as commissioner of agriculture for Owens for eight years after 12 years in the state Legislature, five years on the state Board of Education and 14 years on the Sterling school board. He also was elected president of the Colorado Association of School Boards. He worked hard to improve the financial condition of the Colorado State Fair.
Earlier this year, Ament was named to the Colorado Agriculture Hall of Fame.
The Aspinall Award is named for the late U.S. Rep. Wayne Aspinall, who was in Congress from 1949-73, explained Dick Bratton, a Gunnison water attorney.
Aspinall wielded power over Western water projects through his position as chairman of the House Interior Committee and his driven, detail-oriented personality, Bratton said.
Aspinall was instrumental in developing Glen Canyon Dam and reservoirs in Colorado designed to allow upper basin states to meet downstream obligations under the Colorado River Compact.
Despite his aversion to transmountain diversions, he was instrumental in the passage of legislation authorizing the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project in 1962, because he realized he represented the whole state, Bratton said.
The Water Congress also honored Bob Burr of Walden with an honorary lifetime membership.
Former state Sen. Fred Anderson noted the deaths of two prominent state water leaders in 2007.
Greeley rancher Bill Farr, who was instrumental in the creation of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, died Aug. 13 at the age of 97.
Felix Sparks, a former state Supreme Court justice and longtime Colorado Water Conservation Board member, died Sept. 24 at the age of 90. Sparks, a brigadier general, was also a World War II hero, who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp.
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