Can money make us satisfied?
Or is money the thing that keeps us from ever feeling satisfied?
Money can’t buy back your youth when you’re old
Or a friend when you’re lonely or a love that’s grown cold
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
Compared to the man with a satisfied mind…
— from ‘A Satisfied Mind’ by Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes, 1954.
I attended a meeting of the San Juan Water Conservancy District Board of Directors on Monday afternoon, in their tiny temporary offices at the west end of town. Much of the meeting was conducted behind closed doors in an ‘executive session’, so I sat in my car outside in the parking lot for an hour or so, waiting to be allowed back into the meeting.
I can’t report on what was discussed during the closed door executive session, of course, but according to the meeting agenda, the discussions concerned a potential water reservoir on the Running Iron Ranch, and also, perhaps, water rights cases that SJWCD has involved itself in.
Unlike some government boards that consist of members elected by the voters, the SJWCD board members are appointed by a judge in Durango, with no approval by the taxpayers themselves. Nevertheless, the taxpayers provide about $170,000 annually — paid through property taxes — for these appointed board members to spend on various water issues, including:
Objective 1. Implement the settlement with Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) and Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB).
Objective 2. Focus on a Water Demand Study and identify funding for the Reservoir.
Objective 3. Engage with the community through specific active participation in:
a. Archuleta County Comprehensive Community Plan
b. Region 9 Community Economic Development Strategy
c. Wildfire Ready Action Plan
According to the adopted SJWCD budget, the board members themselves work without pay, as volunteers. The budget also indicates that, although the expected revenues this year are about $174,000, the Board expects to spend about $350,000 this year, by pulling money out of their savings account.
For comparison, the other community-wide water district in Archuleta County — Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) — has an annual budget of about $24.7 million. The Archuleta County budget is about $42.8 million.
Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer 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 opinions of the PAWSD Board as a whole or the PAWSD staff.
As we all know, $174,000 doesn’t buy much these days. Maybe a run-down mobile home, on an acre in Aspen Springs? (Actually, when I visited the Zillow website yesterday, all the 23 listed mobile homes except one were priced above $200,000.)
But some folks dream big. Even with their modest annual budget, the SJWCD Board has been discussing the idea that they could assume responsibility for the CWCB loan that financed the Running Iron Ranch purchase in 2008. That loan obligation, currently being paid by PAWSD customers, has a remaining balance of about $10 million.
Why would SJWCD want to assume a loan obligation of $10 million for a 660-acre ranch, when they can’t even afford a run-down mobile home?
Well… the Board is developing tentative plans to build a $100 million reservoir on the Ranch.
So we get back to the question started today’s editorial.
Is money the thing that keeps us from ever feeling satisfied?
I know that’s a weird question to ask, here in America, where everything seems to cost more than it did last year. And that problem seems to be especially acute for governments.
Back in 2021, when I served as a volunteer on the SJWCD Board of Directors, the board majority wanted to build a large reservoir on the Running Iron Ranch, but didn’t have a clear idea how large the reservoir ought to be. So they hired the engineers at the Wilson Water Group to analyze the water demand in Archuleta County, to help determine if a reservoir were needed, and if so, how large it ought to be.
The resulting water demand study — published in 2022 — cost the taxpayers $19,000.
Last Monday, a different group of people now serving on the SJWCD Board agreed to hire a different engineer, to once again perform an analysis of how much water the people of Archuleta County will need in the future. The estimated cost for this engineering analysis, four years later, is now $147,000.
The current SJWCD Board seems to think that’s a reasonable rate of inflation.
American families often spend more than they can reasonably expect to earn in income. As a result, American household debt is on a relentless upward trajectory. It was at a record $18.20 trillion by 2025, up $4.6 trillion since 2019.
But we ought to compare that to government debt — the debt that you and I owe, but that we never asked for.
According to the federal Office of Budget and Management, during the final year of the Obama administration (2016) the federal government spent $585 billion more than it collected in revenue.
During the final year of the Trump I administration (2020), the federal government spent $3.1 trillion more than it took in.
As of June 2026, the total federal debt of the United States is $39.5 trillion. Or so they say.
State and local government debt is also on the rise. Reportedly, that collective debt amounted to about $1.2 trillion in 1993, when I moved to Pagosa Springs. Last year, it was $3.7 trillion.
Are we satisfied yet?
Or are we running on a hamster wheel?
Read Part Five… tomorrow…