According to the odds provided by DraftKings, the Seattle Seahawks are expected to beat the New England Patriots by 4.5 points in Sunday’s Super Bowl contest. In order to win $100 at DraftKings if you’re betting on the Seahawks, you need to stake a bet worth $240.
If you bet $100 on the Patriots, and they win, you will take home a $190 profit.
DraftKings will win, no matter how you bet.
Back in Part Three, I mentioned the planned mediation session between the San Juan Water Conservancy District board (SJWCD) and the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation board (PAWSD).
PAWSD is currently involved in a lawsuit with SJWCD, related to the Running Iron Ranch and the proposed Dry Gulch Reservoir. Mediation could possibly result in a joint settlement of the lawsuit and avoid the expense of further legal wrangling. Among other benefits.
What might be the outcome of such a mediation effort?
Both of these boards consist of volunteers serving on behalf of Archuleta County taxpayers. The SJWCD board members are appointed by the District Court; the PAWSD board members are elected by PAWSD voters.
SJWCD has an annual tax-funded budget of about $175,000. The district does not provide water to anyone, but strives to address various water issues. Their primary project to enhance the community’s water security is a proposed 11,000 acre-foot reservoir to be located on the Dry Gulch Ranch and surrounding property. Cost: $200 million? Where this funding will come from: Unknown. Method for delivering the stored water to users: Unknown. Who the users might be: Unknown.
PAWSD has an annual budget of about $25 million, funded mainly through customer fees for water and wastewater service. PAWSD is currently completing an expanded water treatment plant on Snowball Road ($44 million) that will basically triple the amount of water that could be delivered to customers east of Piedra Road. PAWSD is also planning for a pipeline from Stevens Reservoir to Lake Hatcher ($2 million?) that could basically triple the amount of reservoir water available at the Hatcher Treatment Plant.
As we can see, these two districts have quite different approaches to Pagosa’s water future, and quite different financial capabilities.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors, but this editorial series reflects only my own opinions, and not necessarily the options of the PAWSD Board as a whole or the PAWSD staff.
According to the demographic patterns over the past couple of decades, the Archuleta County population has been growing at a rate of less than 2% annually. People come and people go, but the general trend has been “slow growth”.
If PAWSD is indeed able, over the next couple of years, to triple its ability to provide drinking water, would this accommodate the projected long-term needs of the community? At a growth rate less than 2% it would take at least 50 years for the population to double — and speaking practically, such a doubling would require:
1. Another town the size of Pagosa Springs.
2. Another subdivision development the size of Pagosa Lakes.
3. Another subdivision the size of Aspen Springs.
4. Etc. Etc.
Does the community need an 11,000 acre-foot ($200 million) reservoir? The community already has over 4,000 acre-feet of reservoir storage, and sells only about 1,400 acre-feet per year.
Here’s an interesting graph I came across several years ago. Some scientists had analyzed fossilized tree rings and estimated the “naturalized flow” of the Colorado River. The San Juan River through Pagosa Springs is a tributary of the Colorado River, upstream of Lees Ferry.
What we see here is a graphic representation of “natural climate change” since 800 AD. The “naturalized flow” means the estimated flow if humans were not diverting any water from the river. As of 2026, humans expect to divert close to 100% of the Colorado River before it reaches Mexico’sborder.
Historically speaking, humans have lived along the Colorado River for millennia. From gilderlehrman.org:
…Native peoples had flourished in the so-called “New World” for tens of thousands of years, largely sustainably, evolving societies ranging from subsistence hunting and gathering bands to sophisticated, agricultural, urban metropolises. Through careful management of scarce natural resources, they had wrested a living from sometimes harsh and formidable environments in the American West.
Indigenous peoples also paid attention to changes in climate and rainfall and reacted accordingly. For example, approximately fifty-five hundred years ago, following the relatively wet and abundant Pleistocene epoch, the West experienced a profoundly dry and hot interval geologists call the Altithermal. Native peoples responded by moving away from the areas that could no longer sustain them.
We can’t accurately predict the future, nor do we have any clear idea what may have caused the “Altithermal” event 5,500 years ago.
I’m pessimistic about the odds that PAWSD and SJWCD — two boards comprised of well-meaning people, but with very different approaches to ‘future water security’ — can reach a mediated settlement.
But let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say that the two districts can actually come to a harmonious agreement concerning the long-disputed Dry Gulch Reservoir project. What might such an agreement look like?
Could be anything. But here’s a possible 90-yard Hail Mary throw:
1. The PAWSD Board agrees to assist in getting the Dry Gulch Reservoir funded and built, including planning, grant writing, and staff assistance.
2. SJWCD agrees to a reservoir smaller than 11,000 acre-feet… perhaps 3,000 acre-feet in size… about twice the size of Pagosa’s largest existing reservoir.
3. SJWCD and PAWSD agree to sell the Running Iron Ranch to a purchaser willing to dedicate an appropriate reservoir easement in the center of the Ranch, thus relieving PAWSD customers of $10 million in debt plus future interest payments.
4. SJWCD and PAWSD drop their expensive lawsuits.
5. The community benefits on several levels.
Conceivably, DraftKings could work up the odds of this kind of agreement being reached, next month during the planned mediation.
I have no idea what the odds would be. We could bet on PAWSD, or we could bet on SJWCD,
The attorneys will get paid, no matter who we bet on.