Photo: The site of the PAWSD Fourmile Creek diversion that feeds Lake Hatcher, in 2023.
There are various types of misinformation coming to us from government agencies… and from political leaders… and from business and industry… and from our friends and neighbors.
One type of misinformation is outright lies — people who say things, or write things, they know very well are untrue.
Another type of misinformation comes from secrecy — people hiding important information to which the taxpayers have an ethical right.
Yet another type of misinformation is rumor — facts that get blown out of proportion as they travel from person to person.
Based on researching and writing about the proposed Dry Gulch Reservoir since 2008, I believe the type of misinformation that resulted in the purchase of the Running Iron Ranch as the site for a future water reservoir was a mixture of lies and secrecy, leading the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) board of directors to believe things that were not true, or were wildly exaggerated.
In this editorial series, I’ve been referring to a Letter to the Editor written by local activist Lee Stopher, published in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN last week, which posed some valid questions but also contained some misinformation. Ms. Stopher implied, for example, that the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) board has made a decision to sell the Running Iron Ranch. The fact is — speaking as a member of PAWSD board — no such decision has been made.
Yet.
The PAWSD board has a special meeting scheduled for this evening at 5pm. Who knows what decisions might be made?
Ms. Stopher wrote in her SUN letter:
I would like to see the PAWSD board make a more concerted effort to be transparent and inclusive in their negotiations and planning.
The reservoir may not be the best solution for our future water needs, but they should be explaining, in terms the public can understand and water experts confirm, their plan for our water future.
So, let’s try and explain that, in terms that the public can understand.
But first, let’s address the idea of “water experts”.
In 2007, one of the foremost water experts in Colorado, Durango-based water engineer Steve Harris, wrote a report that supported the purchase of the Running Iron Ranch with predictions of a steadily growing need for drinking water in Pagosa Springs. He predicted that, by 2024, PAWSD would need to produce more than 5,000 acre-feet of drinking water annually.
The chart below compares water expert Harris’ predictions (the red line) with the actual documented water sales at PAWSD (the blue line.)
In 2011, a citizen group, convened by PAWSD, studied the predictions by water expert Steve Harris and determined that they were wild exaggerations. But even that citizen group — the Water Supply Community Work Group — overestimated the future water needs of PAWSD customers. No one predicted that PAWSD customers would be using less water in 2024 than they were using in 2001.
Here in America, “water experts” are often intimately involved in “water projects”. They make their living designing and overseeing the development of water infrastructure, which often puts them in a position of having a conflict of interest when making recommendations to government entities.
When a water expert might make a lot of money from a new water project, the temptation to lie, and exaggerate, and hide important information, can be strong. The temptation for elected and appointed government officials to act in secrecy is also great, but for other reasons.
Lately, the San Juan Water Conservancy District has held a couple of closed-door executive sessions to discuss the possible sale of the Running Iron Ranch. Colorado law demands that decisions by public bodies be made in public, but allows an appointed board like SJWCD to meet behind closed doors, if they are getting advice from their attorney. Which SJWCD has been doing.
The PAWSD board has also held a couple of closed-door executive sessions, to get advice from its attorney, and also to discuss a possible real estate sale. Colorado law allows a public board to discuss negotiations and real estate transactions behind closed doors.
These executive session discussions about lawsuits and real estate sales have concerned a 667-acre property — the Running Iron Ranch — that’s jointly owned by SJWCD and PAWSD.
But final decisions about lawsuits and real estate transactions must be made in public.
Such closed-door meetings make it impossible for the public to know what a tax-funded government board like SJWCD is planning to do, until after they do it. So we can understand Ms. Stopher frustration, and her appeal for more transparency and sharing of information. Even the weekly newspaper doesn’t know what, exactly, is happening.
The reservoir may not be the best solution for our future water needs, but they should be explaining, in terms the public can understand and water experts confirm, their plan for our water future.
SJWCD has been publicly discussing their plan for the community’s water future: an 11,000 acre-foot reservoir in the Dry Gulch Valley, originally justified by exaggerated estimates of future demand from water expert Steve Harris.
PAWSD has also been publicly discussing their plans for meeting the community’s water needs. Based on real documented facts, PAWSD is moving forward with an enlarged water treatment plant on Snowball Road that will essentially triple its capacity for drinking water from that plant, from about 1,000 acre-feet per year to about 3,000 acre-feet.
3,000 acre-feet is more than double the amount of drinking water used by PAWSD customers last year. But most PAWSD customers actually get their water from the treatment plant on Lake Hatcher instead — a plant that could double its capacity in the near future.
The future of water security in Archuleta County is looking pretty darn bright, without any need for a new reservoir.
Unlike many media outlets in the U.S., the weekly Pagosa Spring SUN does not normally publish investigative articles, so when people like Ms. Stopher read the SUN, they are typically hearing only what was said by government officials during scheduled government meetings.
We can’t always trust what government officials — and their hired “experts” — tell us.
I can say that with some confidence, being myself an elected government official.