The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District is destined to go down in history, no doubt about it.
In 2004, the water district, in collaboration with the San Juan Water Conservancy District, applied for new water rights aimed at filling a proposed 35,000 acre-foot reservoir in the Dry Gulch valley, a couple of miles northeast of downtown Pagosa Springs. In making that proposal, they used such wildly inflated population projections that the Colorado Supreme Court had to make significant changes in the way water is allocated to municipal water districts throughout Colorado. Continued…
A different look at Archuleta County's population... to be explained later. |
Previous to the two PAWSD and SJWCD decisions — now commonly known in legal circles as Pagosa I and Pagosa II — municipal water districts had been able to acquire new water rights pretty much whenever they wanted them and in whatever amount they asked for.
Such was not the case with private water users. A private water user had to prove several things in order to obtain water rights: that the water was indeed available where he wanted it, that he needed the water for a “beneficial use,” and that he actually had the means to develop and use the water once he was granted the right to it — the so-called “can and will” stipulation.
Prior to Pagosa I and Pagosa II, municipal water district were practically immune to any such requirements. All a municipal water district had to do was ask in water court for more water rights, and they were granted — if the water was available. Of course, they had to go through the motions of proving that the water was needed, and that it would someday be developed, but the Colorado water courts assumed that, since the water districts were “non-profit” and were formed to serve entire communities, there was no need to be overly concerned about “water speculation.”
When PAWSD and SJWCD went before judge Greg Lyman in 2004, they brought with them water needs projections developed by their water engineer, Steve Harris, to justify a 35,000 acre-foot reservoir in Dry Gulch. Thanks to a new PAWSD policy — a policy that required the district to maintain a full year’s “safety supply” of water in its reservoirs — the numbers that Steve Harris delivered professed to support the need for such a large reservoir.
 Harris calculated the need for 35,000 acre-feet of new storage based on a steady upward trend in so-called “EU growth” over the next 100 years — and when I say, ‘steady’, I mean, ‘’compounded growth’ — with no attempts by the district to enforce water conservation and with every new district pipeline leaking at the same outrageous rate as the existing PAWSD system.
But unfortunately for all the water districts in Colorado, the eminently honest Steve Harris also made it clear, in his testimony before the Supreme Court, that the way he’d come up with the 35,000 acre-feet had not, in fact, been based on population projections.
“This recommending 35,000 acre-feet for the water rights application was, to me, a no-brainer, because you go to the site capacity and you do your darndest to get that amount built.”
That’s a direct Steve Harris quote, taken from the Supreme Court trial transcript.
TRANSLATION: The data to support the Dry Gulch Reservoir was based not on community water needs but upon the fact that the largest reservoir possible in Dry Gulch was 35,000 acre-feet. So Steve Harris and PAWSD developed data to support that size reservoir.
As a result of Harris and PAWSD using possibly inflated population and water demand numbers in their water rights application, all water districts in Colorado will now be required to jump through additional hoops and make a much stronger case for their water needs, going into the future. Districts will now be required to present evidence in support of their planning period choice, will have to include water conservation data, and will have to fully justify their population projections.
The Population Subcommittee of the Community Water Resources Work Group — five members from a total task force of about 16 local volunteers — has been studying population projection methods for the past month, and has come up with some preliminary population numbers that MIGHT reflect actual community growth over the next 45 years — rather than reflecting the desire for a 35,000 acre-foot reservoir.
Here is a chart of some preliminary numbers that will be presented at tonight’s 4:30pm meeting of the Work Group, at the PAWSD offices, 100 Lyn Avenue. Continued...
Five projections... five colorful lines. |
The green line shows the Steve Harris projections from 2009. The blue line shows recent projections from the Colorado Demographers Office. The violet, red and orange lines show three possible population scenarios that will be discussed at tonight’s Work Group meeting.
Two other groups are working on funding mechanisms and an inventory of existing water resources. The group expects to submit a final report to the PAWSD board sometime in the next few months. |