I cut up my credit cards after the divorce, much to my relief. The credit cards had always been a point of contention — one of many — in my marriage. Clarissa generally subscribed to the belief that you had to spend money to make money, and that the path to continuing financial security depended on continually bringing in more and more money. Or at least, charging more and more money on your credit cards.
I embraced the philosophy touted by a young Benjamin Franklin: ‘A penny saved is a penny earned.’ For me, the road to financial security was paved with stones purchased at a second-hand store. Or maybe even, just a dirt path.
Two different approaches to the limited resources available in a rural town like Pagosa Springs.
Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District — more affectionately known as PAWSD — had a fine time with credit cards during the first decade of the 21st century. They’d been serving one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S. during the 1990s, and they expected the growth to continue apace, indefinitely. At one point during that first decade, PAWSD published documents suggesting that the Pagosa Springs community to grow to maybe 160,000 people by the year 2100. (That would make our population larger than the current populations of Fort Collins, Lakewood, or Pueblo.)
That expectation of continued growth drove a series of investments into expanded facilities, including:
1. The purchase of 660 acres in the Dry Gulch valley as one portion of a possible reservoir site, using a $9 million loan from the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
2. The construction of a pipeline to enclose the flow through the Dutton Ditch.
3. The enlargement of Stevens Reservoir.
4. The construction of a $5 million “biosolids production facility” that has, as I understand it, failed to produce any useable biosolids to date.
When I tallied up the PAWSD projects recently completed or still underway in 2015, they totaled about $15 million. If you added up what we were told they would cost, however, the estimates had come in at about $7 million. I think that’s known as “cost overrun.”
The Dutton Ditch pipeline was probably a good idea. The other investments, maybe not so much. The stored water from our much-enlarged Stevens Reservoir, for example, flows into Lake Pagosa, which flows into Village Lake, which flows into Lake Forest, at which point the water is so full of organic matter that it suffers from taste and odor issues.
But all of that is pretty much water under the bridge, for the time being. The elected Board of Directors currently holding the reins at PAWSD are generally more ‘fiscally conservative’ that the boards that ran up the credit cards at the water district between 2000 and 2015.
But we still have to pay off the credit cards.
Which brings us to the Tuesday, June 5 meeting of the Town Council, where PAWSD General Manager Justin Ramsey was explaining the newly-adopted ‘Drought Management Plan.’ Mr. Ramsey was originally hired as the district engineer, but was quickly promoted to General Manager following the (unfortunate) departure of Renee Lewis.
Mr. Ramsey was not employed at PAWSD during the period when the credit cards were getting maxed out. But he still has to deal with the current financial challenges.
Generally speaking, engineers tend to see the world through a fairly rational lens, with a focus on numbers, and materials, and specifications. Mr. Ramsey shared a lot of numbers during his Town Council presentation. We learned that, despite the current drought conditions in southwest Colorado, the numerous reservoirs in the Pagosa Lakes area are all more than 90 percent full — with the exception of Stevens Reservoir.
For 2018, the provision of water to our home water taps, and to our commercial businesses in Pagosa, appears to be fairly secure. 2019 might be a different matter, if the drought continues.
The new Drought Management Plan calls for either “voluntary” or “mandatory” water use reductions, depending upon two basic measurements: the amount of fresh water flowing into the PAWSD water treatment plants (via diversion rights), and the amount of water stored in PAWSD reservoirs (via storage rights).
PAWSD customers — who comprise maybe 75 percent of the water users in Archuleta County — are currently under a “Voluntary” water reduction plan.
Voluntary water reduction is intended to give the community advance notice of developing drought conditions and begin to foster water conservation and voluntary water use reduction. It is intended that water demand should decline by 0-10% based upon the average of three previous years’ water demand…
Beyond the “Voluntary” reduction, the PAWSD plan lists four levels of “Mandatory” water reduction that would kick in under certain conditions. The levels are progressively more onerous.
As Mr. Ramsey summarized for Council the diversion measurements — the amount of fresh water flowing into the water system — we learned that PAWSD has a complicated mix of “diversion rights” allowing for access to various fresh water sources. A few of those water rights provide for year-round diversion, pretty much regardless of drought conditions. Many of the water rights are “second in line” behind historic agricultural users, however, and provide access to water only at certain times of the year.
The total of the PAWSD diversion rights amounts to about 26 cfs (cubic feet per second), during a year of plentiful water. That calculates out to about 51 acre-feet of water per day, or about 18,600 acre-feet per year. Theoretically. In a good year.
Typically, PAWSD produces about 1,700 acre feet of treated drinking water per year. According to my pocket calculator, PAWSD has theoretical diversion rights equal to about 10 times the amount of water they need, per year. In a good year.
2018 is not a good year. Based on the snowpack in the San Juan Mountains from last summer, we’re going to get about half the amount of water we normally get in our local rivers and streams. If we have normal summer rainfall. That’s a big ‘If.’
So… how about those PAWSD credit cards?
Obviously, if PAWSD brings in revenues by selling water, and if they ask (or require) customers to use less water, then PAWSD will bring in less money.
Or… maybe… if there’s less water to sell… might that make each gallon of water “more valuable”?
Isn’t that how “supply and demand” works?
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.