A strange thing took place this year… something strange that very few people may have heard about. I mean, something other than all the many strange things that happened over the past very strange year.
The San Juan Water Conservancy District — a taxpayer-funded, mostly-volunteer organization — hired an out-of-town consulting firm to create a study.
That was not the strange part, of course. Government entities in Pagosa regularly hire consultants to create studies, and surveys, and reports. The strange part came in the study’s conclusions.
Many years ago, the San Juan Water Conservancy District was ‘gifted’ the water rights to a huge future reservoir, conceived back in the 1960s to be built, someday, at the base of Wolf Creek Pass. This concept — a 39,000-acre-foot reservoir labeled the West Fork Reservoir, capable of storing enough water for a community of at least 160,000 people — was approved by a water court judge during a period in our nation’s history when the water industry in the American West was attempting to claim water rights for future reservoirs in every conceivable location, back when Colorado courts fully endorsed this approach as reasonable and prudent.
Ever since then, various water agencies have been paying attorneys, on a regular basis, to protect and preserve those West Fork Reservoir water rights in court. I am unable to calculate the total taxpayer revenues spent on attorney fees since the 1960s, but I suspect it’s been a tidy sum.
This past year, when SJWCD hired the Wilson Water Group to look at the need for the West Fork Reservoir and its feasibility, a strange thing happened. The consultants determined that the project appeared to be unnecessary, and most definitely impractical at its original location. (You can download the study here.)
The average person might not perceive this to be a strange occurrence, because the average person might not realize that government officials often hire a consultant to tell them exactly what they want to hear, and to support it with ‘data’. Government officials often want a study to confirm that they’re justified in spending millions of taxpayer dollars on whatever proposed project the consultant was hired to endorse.
That’s what had happened in 2003, for example, when the appointed officials at the San Juan Water Conservancy District wanted to build a multi-million-dollar reservoir in the Dry Gulch Valley. They hired a Durango-based water consultant to develop ‘data’ showing that, beyond any reasonable doubt, Pagosa Springs would be desperately short of drinking water by 2021. (As it turns out, in 2021, all of our existing water reservoirs in Pagosa are full to the brim during one of the worst regional droughts in recent history.)
The San Juan Water Conservancy District Board will meet this afternoon, via Zoom, to vote on a resolution declaring that SJWCD will no longer continue spending tax money defending the West Fork Reservoir water rights.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the San Juan Water Conservancy District board, but this op-ed does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the SJWCD board as a whole, nor of any other SJWCD board members.
I mention this strange occurrence — an instance where hired consultants offered reasons why a government agency might choose not to pursue an expensive, tax-funded project — because I was reading through a different consultant-generated feasibility study this past weekend, written by Lakewood, Colorado consultant Michael Koch on behalf of the Archuleta County Mountain Express Transit office.
This new feasibility study — which you can download here — addresses the idea that Pagosa Springs and Durango ought to be connected by a public bus route, to be funded largely (or so it would appear) by state and federal grants.
In particular, the bus might be an electric bus, which would play into the State of Colorado’s established pattern of promoting electric vehicles with taxpayer subsidies.
Reasons to consider this idea?
A few people who live in Pagosa are employed in Durango.
Durango has a larger hospital that offers certain services and specialists not available at the Pagosa Springs Medical Center.
Driving your personal vehicle to Durango can be dangerous, especially when the elk are migrating.
The Walmart is bigger in Durango.
The reasons why anyone would want to initiate a bus trip from Durango to Pagosa? Let me think about that one.
As I read through the 51-page document, I was looking for one particular element. I was looking for a sentence — somewhere, anywhere, in the report — suggesting that this proposed “Intercity Fixed-Route” might not be a good idea. I was looking for an ‘objective’ viewpoint.
I found the following comment on page 18, discussing the existing MET routes in Archuleta County:
Conclusion
The overall conclusion to this chapter is that MET is operating at an expected range for a rural system of its age and size, although attracting more ridership is needed.
As was mentioned in Part Two, the 2021 Archuleta County budget for Mountain Express Transit indicated an expected Revenue, from passenger fares, of about $39,000, with almost all of that revenue — $35,000 — coming from the San Juan Basin Area Agency on Aging. (For subsidized rides to and from the Senior Center?)
The budget shows only $4,200 coming from the MET “Fare Box”.
The income from the “MT Express Fare Box” back in 2018 was three times what is expected for 2021. This is reflective, perhaps, of the reluctance of people to choose public transit during a global pandemic. Will transit ridership ever return to ‘normal’? We aren’t sure.
The MET’s expected 2021 Expenses appear to be in excess of $400,000, which is more than three times the expenditures in 2018.
While the non-subsidized fare box revenue fell in 2019 (prior to the pandemic) and then crashed during 2020, the MET expenditures have greatly increased since 2018. The deficit is, of course, covered by federal, state and local taxes.
Another ‘objective’ comment I found in the 51-page Compass study:
Looking at prior year MET maintenance costs, they are high relative to industry standards,while the County also includes a 27% markup on all charges. Given the high costs, the current maintenance situation may not be optimal for MET.
Mr. Koch did not tell us exactly what “high relative to industry standards” might mean.