Pat Page, a longtime employee of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Upper Colorado Basin Region, will oversee the agency’s Four Corners Construction Office in Farmington.

The bureau, a 118-year-old agency, is responsible for projects that store and transport water to 31 million people and one out of five farmers west of the Mississippi River. 

“I look forward to working with our partners as we continue to make progress on projects that will have such a profound impact on the lives of the people in the area — providing a clean, reliable water supply — a need that is more clear now than ever before,” Page said.

Page will have responsibility for the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, an initiative to construct 280 miles of pipeline, multiple pumping plants and water treatment plants to convey water to parts of the Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Nation and the city of Gallup. The bureau estimates that 40% of Navajo households must transport in water currently to meet their needs.

A graduate of Colorado State University, Page began work with the bureau in 1990 and spent more than two decades in the Durango office. He is registered in Colorado as a professional engineer and his portfolio at the bureau included water rights and conservation, contacts, and Indian water rights settlements.