As an investigative reporter who doesn’t mind questioning numbers and statements made by government leaders and the consultants who serve government leaders, I’ve come across some wildly inventive claims about community needs. But few of the claims have been as recklessly imaginative as those made by Durango engineer Steven C. Harris in his 2007 feasibility study aimed at justifying the Dry Gulch Reservoir project.
For example. Mr. Harris assured the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) board that by the year 2020, the annual water demand from PAWSD would likely amount to 1.7 billion gallons.
1.7 billion gallons of water demand. In 2020.
We have to wonder what fairy tale world Mr. Harris was living in. Because Mr. Harris certainly must have had access to actual water demand numbers from the PAWSD administration?
And the actual data told a completely different story from the one he was telling.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) board of directors, but this editorial reflects only my own personal opinions, and not necessarily those the PAWSD board as a whole.
Here is a graph developed by statistic professor John Ramberg in 2011, based on a decade of actual PAWSD data.
In this graph, the blue line is the amount of PAWSD water purchased by Archuleta County residents and businesses each year. (Red shows the amount lost to leaking pipes and other ‘non-revenue’ losses. Yellow shows the total amount of water treated.)
In the year 2001, PAWSD customers purchased 510 million gallons of treated water.
The following year, 2002, southwest Colorado experienced an historic drought and the San Juan River dropped to a level not seen in anyone’s recent memory…
…and everyone in the community began seriously conserving water. As we see in Mr. Ramberg’s chart, the PAWSD water sales (blue line) dropped from 510 million gallons in 2001, down to 362 million gallons in 2002.
And the community continued conserving water. In 2007, the amount sold totaled 383 million gallons, barely more than in 2002.
383 million gallons, in 2007.
But in his 2007 report to the PAWSD board, Mr. Harris claimed the actual 2007 demand was 991 million gallons.
And by 2020, he told the PAWSD board of directors, the water demand would be 1.7 billion gallons.
According to PAWSD data, last year — 2021 — the total amount of treated water sold was 441 million gallons… one quarter the amount that SJWCD president Fred Weber Schmidt and engineer Steven C. Harris had used, to push the Dry Gulch Reservoir property purchase down the taxpayers’ throats.
Although the population of Archuleta County grew by about 32% between 2000 and 2020, the community’s water demand in 2021 was still less than in 2001. 16% less.
Back in Part One, I suggested that there might be hope for the San Juan Water Conservancy District, with fresh faces appearing on the board of directors. The four applicants — Candace Jones, Rachel Suh, Bill Nobles and Rod Proffitt — have reportedly been appointed by Judge Jeffrey Wilson, and if all goes as planned, will be sworn in at the Monday, July 25, SJWCD board meeting.
I also suggested that I have concerns about one of the appointed applicants: Rod Proffitt. Hopefully, Mr. Proffitt has learned a lesson or two about the ethics of serving on a taxpayer-funded government board, since his resignation from SJWCD in 2018.
He may also have learned a lesson or two about getting community buy-in on multi-million-dollar infrastructure projects.
But maybe not?
Mr. Proffitt made the following comments at the June 20 meeting, in response to director Joe Tedder’s comments that he hoped the incoming board members are open-minded, regarding the need — or lack of need — for a large publicly-funded reservoir in the Dry Gulch valley.
Rod Proffitt:
“I am certainly open-minded in the configuration, the sizing, partnerships, how that works with the Forest Service, any number of options. But water storage is, for me, almost a given… that this community needs water storage.
“Now, you can size it, based on the latest data, and based on what our partnership might need, if we partner with other entities. But PAWSD is going to need water. And the [Southern Utes] are going to need water. And this community is going to need water. And the recreational needs of this community is going to need water.
“And you put all those things together, and we have to have water storage.”
I can’t help but feel mildly amused — and mildly frustrated — when I listen to people assert what our community needs, without having even a scrap of data to back up their assertions. Mr. Proffitt served as SJWCD president for several years, and managed to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars on marketing trips all over Colorado, but never — during his entire tenure as president — did SJWCD develop any believable data indicating that an 11,000-acre-foot reservoir in the Dry Gulch valley was needed, or feasible.
In 2017, Mr. Proffitt and his board failed to convince the voting public about the need for a reservoir, when their proposed property tax increase – aimed at additional property acquisitions in the Dry Gulch valley — lost at the polls by a 2-to-1 margin, in 2017.
But we have reason to be hopeful. The SJWCD board approved a budget last December that included money to hire the engineers at the Wilson Water Group to develop the kind of real-world data that should be able to inform better decision making, regarding Dry Gulch.
Is a reservoir needed? Can we afford it? Is a reservoir the best way to deal with a drought situation?
How much water would Archuleta County have available, in a serious drought situation, during peak tourist season?
That last question might summarize the central issue, in 2022.
But a larger question concerns the future. How much water will Archuleta County have, in a serious drought, during peak tourist season, in the year 2050?
I have to laugh at that question, because it’s impossible to answer. While you are reading this editorial, representatives of the American water industry are scheming on ways to save Lake Mead and Lake Powell from extinction. Their solutions, and their negotiations with the federal government, could have an enormous impact on what water is available in small rural communities like Pagosa Springs
And if gasoline prices keep going up and up, Pagosa Springs might not even have a ‘peak tourist season’ in 2050.
Who knows? Not me.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.