“As we continue to face climate change impacts, including persistent drought, working together to find solutions to our water challenges is more important than ever.”
— Upper Colorado River Commissioner Rebecca Mitchell, December 17, 2020
During my 16 years writing political commentary for the Daily Post, I’ve witnesses numerous smart decisions by various government boards.
But like all organizations, government boards and agencies are composed of humans, and “to err is human.” So I’ve also witnessed some really dumb decisions. I’ve witnessed some decisions that were unethical, some that violated Colorado or local laws, and some that suggested intentional corruption and fraud.
Some of the worst decisions I’ve had the painful duty of reporting on, took place between 2002 and 2010, during the time when Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) and the San Juan Water Conservancy District (SJWCD) boards were collaborating on the purchase of the Running Iron Ranch in the Dry Gulch valley, and — in connection therewith — the creation of the oppressive new Water Resource Fee (which was later abandoned, after a voter-approved turnover on the PAWSD board of directors, and a subsequent turnover of PAWSD employees.)
(Disclaimer: I currently serve on the San Juan Water Conservancy District Board of Directors as an appointed volunteer, but this editorial series does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Board as a whole, nor of any individual Board members other than myself.)
Although the proposed reservoir in the Dry Gulch valley has been removed from the PAWSD long-term capital improvement plan, the San Juan Water Conservancy District continues to discuss ways of getting some type of reservoir built there. The water rights decreed by the water court would allow for a reservoir measuring up to 11,000 acre-feet — about twice the amount of storage currently available in all of the Pagosa Lakes area reservoirs combined. In theory, therefore, this amount of additional water storage might accommodate a PAWSD district three times the size of its current population. Maybe more.
Presumably, the water for a Dry Gulch reservoir would be diverted (somehow) from the San Juan River, and subsequently delivered (somehow) to a community three times Pagosa’s current size. Where, exactly, this much larger community would be constructed is unclear. It’s also unclear where this larger community would treat and release its sewage, from where it would obtain its electricity, where the new schools would be built, and where the commercial infrastructure to service this larger community would be located. (Presumably, we would need at least two additional City Markets? Maybe two more Walmart stores? And heaven knows how many additional real estate offices…)
But all of those concerns are, thankfully, still far off in an imaginary future. What is not so far off, perhaps, is the failure of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. From a Friday press release, sent out by the state agency known as the Colorado Water Conservation Board:
Colorado joined Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming to begin preliminary discussions regarding the upcoming negotiations of the Colorado River Basin operational guidelines.
Governors’ representatives from each of the Colorado River Basin States signed a joint letter to Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman requesting technical support from the federal agency as the states move forward with these discussions. Colorado’s Upper Colorado River Commissioner Rebecca Mitchell signed the letter on behalf of Colorado.
Involved states will be considering future recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior regarding operational guidelines for Lakes Powell and Lake Mead beyond 2026.
The press release included a supposed link to the “joint letter” so we could read what, exactly, the seven state commissioners told Secretary Bernhardt and Commissioner Burman… but the link was broken when I tried it on Sunday. So we are left once again with our imaginations.
The seven states that divert water out of the Colorado River Basin collaborated on a a drought mitigation plan back in 2007 — in hopes of preventing the federal government from taking control of the Colorado River. The US Constitution has been (traditionally) interpreted as giving the federal government control over the “navigable waters of the United States” based upon this (rather vague?) statement:
The Congress shall have Power … To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes…
Whether the Colorado River once accommodated commercial transportation, between the various US states along its route, is of small importance, it seems. The federal government has made it clear that they consider themselves to be the ultimate arbiter over the use of the Colorado River, including any diversions and water infrastructure in and along the river. Both Lake Mead and Lake Powell, for example, were created by the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
But the Bureau, and the US Department of the Interior — nice guys that they are — have allowed the seven Basin states to work out their own “compacts” and agreements for sharing the river’s bounty.
Mexico also has some legal rights to Colorado River water, since the river ultimately flows into Mexico. The agreements are between the US and Mexico, but the seven Basin states have been involved, historically, in writing the agreements. According to my research, the US has violated its 1948 treaty regularly and consistently over the past 60 years. That record does not instill much confidence, perhaps, in the federal government’s ability to control the river in a fair and equitable manner.
Last year, the seven Basin states signed a new agreement, the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan, that modified the 2007 agreement. That agreement was supposed to guide the operations of Lake Mead and Lake Powell through 2026. But the so-called “persistent drought” shows no sign of letting up. So it’s back to the drawing board.
As we discussed previously, the term “persistent drought” has been applied vigorously, and continuously, in press releases from state and federal agencies, since at least 2002 — usually hand-in-hand with the term, “climate change”.
But the current “natural flows” of the Colorado River, this past 18 years, appear similar to the calculated river flows during the last half of the 19th century, when relatively little “greenhouse gas” was being produced. So we can (if we wish) interpret the term “persistent drought” to mean what it really means: farmers, ranchers, industries and cities using more water than is available.
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.