Read Part One
It’s after midnight, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. A string of emails arrived yesterday from a local business owner who started researching the Dry Gulch water project several years ago, and was gradually led into a maze of conspiracy theories concerning the private ownership of water resources all around the globe.
The links that arrive in the emails connect to articles and web videos dealing with The Carlyle Group, possibly the largest private equity firm in the world, with $85 billion in equity capital under its management — and with connections to the Bush family, the Bin Laden family, the World Bank, and the “military industrial complex.” I am told that the Carlyle Group is beginning to focus on purchasing raw water sources all over the world.
After a couple of hours of research, I am failing to see any clear connection between Dry Gulch and the world-wide effort, by various multinational corporations, to privatize water supplies in numerous countries.
But I have come across some intriguing stories, unrelated to the World Bank, the Bush Family, and The Carlyle Group, about water in the Southwest — including a link to “Blue Gold,” a film that was screened at Pagosa’s Liberty Theatre earlier this week. That film showing was co-sponsored by Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) and SOS, a local environmental group.
You can click here to learn more about SOS.
The full title of the film is “Blue Gold: World Water Wars.” I didn’t have a chance to attend that free showing, so I had to settle for the YouTube.com trailer, a 2 ½ minute summary of the film, plus a collection of “Deleted Scenes” offered on YouTube.
“What most people don’t know is that the world is desertifying very quickly — we are becoming a desert. And there’s nowhere in the world to go, to get away from it,” says Maude Barlow in one of the film interviews.
 Maude Barlow is one of Canada’s most outspoken social activists and the founder of the Blue Planet Project, an international organization focused on the right to water. She speaks about impending water shortages — major cities running short of water — in Australia and Mexico.
Another speaker interviewed in the film, physicist Vandana Shiva, relates a story about Coca Cola draining the water from an aquifer in Kerala in southwestern India, and leaving children and families without water.
"We are not talking about potential tensions. We are talking about blood being spilled in the streets," Shiva asserts. "When any country starts to use water, beyond its limits, and starts harming another region, you must inevitably have water wars."
The stories are unsettling, but seem to have little to do with Pagosa Springs and the proposed Dry Gulch Reservoir. As far as I can tell, the proposed PAWSD reservoir — for all its problems, ambiguities, and potential taxpayer expense — is not connected with any multinational corporations.
As far as I can tell.
But water resources do change hands, even here in Colorado. Take, for example, this paragraph from a Nestlé Waters North America website.
“The demand for bottled water has experienced rapid growth over the last decade, due largely to health-minded people switching from sugared sodas and sports drinks to water. Currently, Nestlé Waters transports all of its bottled spring water to Colorado and surrounding states from Southern California. To reduce truck miles, fuel consumption, carbon emissions, and cost, the company is seeking regional spring sources, to be bottled in Denver. Nestlé Waters initially identified and explored two potential spring sources, Ruby Mountain Springs and Bighorn Springs in Chaffee County, Colorado that may help meet this need.”
Nestlé's plan was approved last August by the Chaffee County commissioners, according to a Denver Post article by reporter Jason Blevins:
“Chaffee County's three commissioners today unanimously approved a plan to ship Arkansas Valley spring water to Denver for bottling,” Blevins wrote. “Nestlé Waters North America has spent the past two years researching a plan to annually draw 200 acre-feet of spring water — about 65 million gallons — from a riverside spring near Buena Vista, send it via pipeline to a loading station and truck it to Denver for bottling under its Arrowhead brand.
“After months of public input earlier this year, Chaffee County's commissioners crafted a lengthy list of conditions designed to protect both the region's water supply and the county's economy. Nestlé agreed to the conditions to secure the county's 10-year permit.”
Those conditions included the rehabilitation of a dilapidated fish hatchery, groundwater monitoring, local hiring requirements, and a $500,000 endowment for environmental education in local schools.
200 acre-feet of water — sold to Nestlé for $800 per acre-foot — may not sound like a large amount, and maybe it’s not, in the big picture of things. Here in Pagosa, PAWSD delivers about 2,000 acre-feet annually to all its water users.
But the story does demonstrate how already-developed water resources are changing hands here in Colorado, and how drinking water is becoming a commodity — processed by large corporations and sold in stores at a huge profit.
At one of the very first meetings I ever covered for the Daily Post dealing with Dry Gulch, PAWSD board president Karen Wessels was addressing the Board of County Commissioners, and explaining the rather large size planned for the future Dry Gulch Reservoir. The proposed size at that time was 35,000 acre-feet — with water rights equal to 64,000 acre-feet, to keep the reservoir “full.”
Essentially, PAWSD was requesting water rights equal to 30 times its current demand. Presently, PAWSD serves a population of about 10,000 people with 2,000 acre-feet. So 64,000 acre-feet would have potentially served at least 300,000 people. What was PAWSD going to do with so much water?
Wessels suggested that some of the water might be sold to other communities.
Since that first meeting, I have not heard anyone connected with PAWSD mention the idea of selling Dry Gulch water to other communities. But I have also never heard anyone promise that PAWSD would not sell its water.
In my mind, however, I can see no other sensible reason for building a reservoir as large as the one proposed for Dry Gulch.
As the BoCC notes in its request letter of March 8, PAWSD has consistently used “excessively aggressive growth projections” and “significantly underestimated project costs.” It also appears from that letter that PAWSD has, over the past several years, incurred a revenue bond debt higher than the combined debt loads of the School District, the Town and the County together — totaling over $5,000 per PAWSD customer.
The BoCC also notes that an impact fee report developed by Andy Knudsen, of Denver-based Economic and Planning Systems, suggests significant economic impacts to a community when total impact fees are too high. The BoCC letter states:
“In communities with fees less than $20,000, new building permits fell 55 percent from 2006 to 2009. When the fees were in excess of $20,000, permits fell 73 percent. Archuleta County building permits have declined 85 percent."
The BoCC then asks, “Does [PAWSD] believe there is a correlation between excessive impact fees and economic activity?”
Judging from the numerous water district meetings I’ve attended, the current PAWSD board does not see its WRF impact fees as “excessive,” or as playing a significant role in the recent meltdown of Pagosa’s building and real estate industries.
PAWSD also does not view any of its other fees as “excessive.”
Nor does PAWSD consider it “excessive” to spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, to defend its Dry Gulch project in various courtrooms.
The Dry Gulch battle is not over, not by a long shot. In an election season when the Town of Pagosa Springs was able to roust just three candidates for three open Town Council seats, the water district saw five candidates apply for two vacant board positions. Recent moves by the BoCC have raised questions about PAWSD’s ultimate autonomy, especially in terms of creating additional debt obligations for district customers.
My final thought, for this go-around. If PAWSD is going to sell the Dry Gulch water to someone else — then let that town, or corporation, pay for the reservoir. |