It’s late November, and water levels in the Colorado River are dropping. It’s the perfect time to build in the riverbed, just as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is doing upstream from town, Palisade Town Administrator Tim Sarmo said. Sarmo, though, is stymied — again — in his plan to build a whitewater kayak park in the river. Palisade had hoped to build a whitewater park immediately below the Price-Stubb Diversion Dam at the mouth of De Beque Canyon. The $2 million price tag to hook onto the Reclamation project was prohibitive, and the town had to back out last summer, so the fish-passage project is moving ahead without it. Palisade officials didn’t give up, though. They found a likely spot above Riverbend Park and set to work, getting the backers who had pledged money for the original idea to stick with them for the next edition.

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