Photo: The Asian cockroaches know as ‘Salganea taiwanensis’ are known to form long-lasting monogamous relationships, in spite of having relatively small brains.
Our Daily Post humor writer, Louis Cannon, wrote yesterday about monogamous cockroaches, and mentioned that — according to scientific articles found online — cockroach brains contain about 1 million brain cells, while human brains contain about 100 billion.
He then proposed that the overabundance of human brain cells results, not necessarily in greater intelligence, but rather, in greater confusion.
If Mr. Cannon is correct, that confusion definitely extends to the ongoing controversy around the Dry Gulch reservoir project, first conceived back in the late 1960s… promoted again during the 1980s… described as feasible in 2003… rejected by the Colorado Supreme Court as “water speculation” in 2009 and 2010… and currently the subject of an expensive lawsuit involving two Archuleta County water districts.
Apparently, and much to my surprise, the Pagosa Springs SUN newspaper has begun posting many of their weekly articles on the home page of their website, available to be read in full without a subscription. (I pay for an annual subscription to receive the print version.) I was visiting the SUN website yesterday to see if they had shared a public statement by the San Juan Water Conservancy District (SJWCD) concerning a tentative agreement with Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD). That agreement was mediated on March 13 and approved by both districts on March 16.
The agreement could possibly result in the two districts dropping the 15-month old lawsuit scheduled for trial in May. But final details still need to be worked out.
Both district boards have committed to keeping the tentative agreement confidential until those details can finalized.
Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer Board member for PAWSD, but this editorial reflects only my own opinions, and not necessarily those of the PAWSD Board or PAWSD staff.
The brief SUN article about the mediated March 13 agreement, written by journalist Josh Pike, accurately summarized the situation, but did not share the official public statements from either of the two districts. (I shared the official PAWSD statement in Part One.)
Based on researching and writing about the Dry Gulch Reservoir over the past 18 years, it’s my humble opinion that the Running Iron Ranch purchase was a boondoggle perpetrated on the Archuleta County taxpayers in 2008 by a couple of corrupt politicians who are no longer around. The PAWSD board of directors came to a similar conclusion in 2012 and removed the Dry Gulch project from the district’s long-term capital plans. PAWSD customers continue, however, to pay off the $9.2 million loan used to purchase the Ranch.
This week’s editorial series was sparked, of course, by the mediated agreement on March 13, and by the approval of that tentative agreement by both district boards on March 16.
But it was also sparked by an announcement posted by the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners.
As we notice, “Water Concerns” are listed as one of the key issues in need of public input. The inclusion of this issue relates to a new Colorado law requiring Archuleta County to update its comprehensive plan — the 2017 ‘Archuleta County Community Plan” — to include information about water resources available to support future economic and population growth.
What information does the community have, about water supplies? Is it based on facts… or on fear?
In a year of drought, such as 2026 seems likely to be, fear can easily be an overriding emotion… as it was in 2002, when an historic drought generated a proposal to build a new community reservoir on the Running Iron Ranch. That proposal predicted severe water shortages by 2025 unless a new reservoir was built…
Fear remains a potent driver of human decision-making in 2026. Is it possible that an overabundance of human brain cells can also result in useless and unwarranted worry about the future?
I’ve shared the following graph before in Daily Post editorials, to illustrate how fear can lead to crazy decisions. This graph illustrates the difference between the estimates of Archuleta County water demands provided by water engineer Steve Harris, shown in red — estimates that eventually resulted in the 2008 purchase of the Running Iron Ranch…
…and the actual water sold by PAWSD, shown in blue, which has remained remarkably flat even while the Archuleta County population increased by about 32%.
In my opinion, Steve Harris was a highly intelligent, and very experienced, water engineer — perhaps one of the most qualified water engineers in the state of Colorado.
How could he have missed the mark so dramatically? And cost the PAWSD customers millions of dollars as a result?
In particular, we should note that these projections from an experienced and qualified water engineer were published in 2007. But Mr. Harris utterly ignored the established fact — yes, the fact — that water demand in 2007 was already dramatically lower than in 2001. Instead, his professional report portrayed PAWSD water demand in 2007 as nearly three times the actual customer demand. This was either an outright lie or a terribly careless mistake.
Thus, my comment about 100 billion brain cells causing confusion.
I visited the San Juan Water Conservancy District website yesterday, hoping to find that board’s official statement about the March 13 agreement, but did not find it.
I did find, however, an official statement by SJWCD attacking the PAWSD board.
“This board is committed to efforts to end the frivolous and costly litigation that PAWSD started more than a year ago. It has cost these boards, and therefore, the taxpayers and ratepayers, a lot. We have long seen the need for a demand and water supply analysis of a sufficient time horizon by qualified professionals as providing a path to common ground. I see it as being an essential component to settlement. The entire community benefits from planning based on the best available forecasts. PAWSD should embrace the opportunity to demonstrate how it is prepared to serve ratepayers and the limits of what PAWSD can be counted on to provide.
“This is not the only essential element of a compromise, but it is significant not only to end this costly litigation, but to serve the interests of the community looking ahead.”
Ah, yes. The best available forecasts. By “qualified” professionals.
In 2007, PAWSD and SJWCD hired one of the most qualified water engineers in Colorado to estimate our future water demand, and received an utterly nonsensical and misleading report.
In 2022, SJWCD paid another highly qualified water engineer, Erin Wilson, for a report on future water demand, and received a report that overestimated population growth in Archuleta County by more than 200%, and miscalculated water demand in precisely the same manner as Steve Harris has done in 2007.
In 2026, SJWCD paid a highly qualified engineering firm, RJH Consultants, and received a similar nonsensical estimate of future water demand.
During all this time, PAWSD has continued to serve its customers with safe, reliable drinking water. Which gives me hope for the human brain.