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Rocks in the River, Part Three |
Bill Hudson | 7/29/08
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Read Part One
Back in 1994, when the Town of Pagosa Springs began work on the original restoration of the downtown San Juan River funded by a sizable “Fishing is Fun” grant, the actual placement of the boulders were the last step in a long process. The first part of the process — a step required by the federal government and the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) before any rocks could be placed — involved securing easements in and along the river to assure that the public would be able to legally access the planned fishing enhancements.
 According to a source close to the original “Fishing is Fun” project (who prefers not to be identified) the “Fishing is Fun” project was aimed at improved fishing opportunities in the downtown San Juan, so the federal and state governments wanted the Town to acquire a ten-foot-wide access easement above the high water mark, from all the property owners along the downtown San Juan. The Town spent just over $100,000 securing those easements in 1994. According to my source, the only property owner who did not grant the ten-foot fishing access easement was the Spring Inn — now the Springs Resort. The Town and their “Fishing is Fun” contractor, hydrologist Dave Rosgen, placed the fishing enhancements in places that generally offered easy fishing access from at least one side of the river.
I attempted to verify my source’s easement information at the County Assessor’s office, but discovered that the County Assessor does not usually record easements in their computer database, since easements generally have little or no impact on property values. At this point, I am not sure if the 1994 easements were ever recorded.
The fact remains, however, that the easements were a crucial part of the “Fishing is Fun” planning process, and were seen as important enough to justify a $100,000 investment.
Fast forward to December 2004, and a new $50,000 contract between Town Manager Mark Garcia and white water park designers Recreational Engineering and Planning (REP) of Boulder, Colorado. The contract specifies the design of a well-engineered white water park that essentially replaces the 1995 “Fishing is Fun” structures with new boating-friendly structures.
As Town Manager Garcia signs this contract, he has no permits for this project, he has no permission from the federal government or DOW to remove the grant-funded “Fishing is Fun” structures — and he has no easements for the new project. All the Town’s existing easements were obtained through careful agreements that supported the “Fishing is Fun” structures — not a future white water park.
Garcia has also budgeted the project for materials and design only, depending totally on Wolf Creek Ski Area owner Davey Pitcher to donate all the heavy equipment and labor costs.
At last Thursday’s work session between the Town and REP’s Gary Lacy, it became quite evident that, three and a half years later, the Town still has no final permits, no final permission to remove the “Fishing is Fun” structures — and no easements. Yet the Town has paid Lacy nearly $84,000 for design work — and for help obtaining permits, permissions and easements.
During Thursday’s meeting, several members of the public spoke from the audience, including a couple supporters of the white water park concept. Many of the comments from the audience, however, were critical of the way the Town and REP have handled the project — particularly, how the project could have come so far without any easements or permits in place, and without any clear idea who would be overseeing the entire project, now that the white water park’s key proponent, former Town Manager Mark Garcia, has resigned from the Town.
Springs Resort representative Bill Whittington, who attended the meeting with his daughter, resort owner Keely Whittington-Reyes, and resort pool designer Matt Mees, explained the reasons why the Springs Resort has withdrawn its support for the current white water park — even though Bill Whittington had originally helped with the construction of the Davey Wave in March 2005, only weeks after the Whittingtons purchased the Springs Resort.
“We were just new to town and we thought everybody loved everybody. The [new west bank rock work] looked fantastic, but then everything started unwinding… Kara Helige from the Corps had a big problem with grout being used in the river… the USGS guy was very hot and very directed about the loss of the gauging station, and offered to whip my ass… and I felt like there was obviously a gigantic problem. And I got a lot of phone calls about the fishing grant money that was already spent there; we got raked through the coals from those folks…”
Referring to documents he obtained from the Army Corps of Engineers, Whittington stated that the ACOE had never agreed with the Town that the existing “Fishing is Fun” structures needed replacement.
Whittington praised the existing structures at Thursday's meeting. “We spent the time, we spent the money, we did 12 years of study. It’s not flooding anybody, it’s doing a good job. We personally book many thousands of dollars worth of river rafting on that river — and we also see the kayakers using the [existing “W” weirs] all up and down the river. Why are we spending money — and why are we having these conversations — if what’s out there is already working?
“I thought the reason the Town wanted to [reconstruct the river] was based on some grandiose reason, but when I researched what was going on and read the documents, I can’t see why you want to change it. The fishing guys come to me and say, ‘There’s thirty people out there playing on that Wave; we can’t fish there.’ I helped you build [the Davey Wave,] I grant you that, but I watch the river eight, ten hours a day. There’s no conflict between fishermen and boaters when the boaters are floating through — they wave, the fishermen wave — but when you put a stoppage in the river [like the Davey Wave] that’s when you start creating a problem between boating and fishing.”
Whittington implied that the resort might be willing to support a white water park located elsewhere in the river, by providing easements and even donating additional funding.
“You guys [at REP] have designed some very nice projects, I’m not debating that. But I think we can better utilize our money if we can keep what we’ve got and move [the white water park] to another area.”
Lacy’s associate at the Thursday meeting, Shane Sigle, affirmed that REP would be happy to redesign the project for a different location — at cost, of course — but suggested that a white water park would function better in a popular, accessible area of river like the stretch indicated in the present REP plans.
If only REP and the Town had the permissions needed to place it there.
The Councilors currently sitting on the Town Council are not all the same ones who have been funding REP’s work for the past four years. Listening to the comments from the various Councilors during Thursday’s meeting — and especially hearing the comments from the Springs Resort representatives — it appears doubtful that the downtown water park, as currently sketched, will be completed under this Council’s watch.
Whether the Town Council will try and relocate former Town Manager Mark Garcia’s pet project to a different stretch of the river — and pay REP for totally new designs and hydraulic modeling — is a question that seems, at this moment, as muddy as the San Juan River after a serious rainstorm. |
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