Essay by Martha Quillen
Drought – September 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
This year, George Sibley coordinated the 27th annual Colorado Water Workshop at Western State College.
From July 31 to August 2, WSC hosted serious presentations on water law, water policy, environmental issues, and various dams and diversions. The primary subject this year was the history and future of reclamation, but conservation was also addressed, and sarcastic quips about Gunnison’s water wealth were commonplace.
Drought year or not, sprinklers in front of the Student Union spewed water across the street, the sidewalk, and the building entrance. On Highway 50, heading toward the Gunnison airport, sprinklers watered a quarter mile of median strip plus three feet of pavement on both sides. All over town, water poured into the streets and rushed down the gutters.
(And it seemed to be working — or at least the parking lots out on the west edge of Gunnison definitely appear to be growing.)
At this point, I’m sure some readers will be thinking that Gunnison should save that water for us, and some front range cities definitely agree. But there’s no way Gunnison’s water is going to flow over here unless it’s diverted. And diversions are expensive, which means that they have to supply a great deal of water to make them worthwhile, and removing so much water from a basin can change the very nature of a place.
Less water in Gunnison County would mean fewer irrigated fields and less water in tributaries which would mean less natural and cultivated greenery in the basin which would change wildlife habitat. And less flow in the rivers would threaten wildlife, fish and power-generating plants.
Therefore, Gunnison ranchers, environmentalists and townspeople, including George Sibley, have banded together to protest trans-mountain diversion. They believe that Gunnison’s natural splendor shouldn’t be washed down front range taps.
But what happens to all of that water Gunnison pours on lawns? Some of it is trapped in trees and greenery, and some is evaporated (although considering the surrounding topography it probably doesn’t go far), but a large percentage (about 40%) flows right back into the river, then on into Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California.
And that’s what really seems to irk a lot of diversion-loving spokesmen. By not diverting water into our dryer Colorado communities, we are sending water that Colorado has the right to use into other states. “We are losing Colorado’s water.”
Lost or not, water was nourishing both lawns and minds in Gunnison. Conference speakers included: historians, water planners, water consultants, water board members, lawyers, environmentalists, utility managers and the like; plus an assortment of professionals in hydrology, biology, ecology, and engineering — plus Ed Quillen from Colorado Central Magazine. And the conference played to a pretty full house of water activists, journalists, and people involved in regional government.
Thus, even though I missed much of the 4-day event, a mere day and a half of discussion convinced me that water was in good hands in our region.
— Until I got home.
Although Gunnison may have plenty of water, the rest of us — in Poncha Springs, Westcliffe, Silver Cliff, and Buena Vista — have plenty of restrictions.
Right before Ed and I left for Gunnison, a couple of people called to ask what we thought about a story in the newspaper regarding a Salida water work session that was held the night before. “Did you hear that the city is probably going to have to cut out all outdoor watering?” someone asked.
“Who said that?” I inquired.
“Terry Scanga.”
Terry Scanga is the Manager of the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, a government agency. The district serves Chaffee, Frémont and Custer Counties, and its primary purpose is “construction of works,” and “to acquire and appropriate waters … and to divert, store, transport, conserve, develop, and stabilize all of said supplies of water….” In that capacity, the district contracts for storage rights in Twin Lakes, Pueblo, North Fork, Cottonwood and O’Haver reservoirs.
Although Salida is in the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy district, the district doesn’t control Salida’s water. Instead, the city leases some of the district’s water storage rights and theoretically participates in some of the district’s projects. (But since UAWCD is a relatively new district — it was organized in 1979 — it hasn’t actually built anything yet.)
So when I got that phone call, I thought that there must be some mistake. I knew that Scanga had asked the city to hold a water workshop — presumably to discuss water storage with the city — but if Salida needed to eliminate outdoor watering, the word should have come from a city spokesman, probably our administrator.
So I grabbed the Mountain Mail and read it while I packed for Gunnison. As it turned out, according to the paper, Scanga did recommend “restrictions, if not an immediate end, to outdoor irrigation [in Salida] and the ‘browning’ of the golf course and the city parks to have a ‘cushion’ on which to operate in the event of an 1861 call.”
At the same meeting, Water Commissioner Bruce Smith called the situation a “serious water shortage” and recommended buying out the hay crop of Glen Vandaveer, a local rancher with senior rights, rather than releasing water to him. “It’s imminent. It is serious enough that something has to be done by the end of the week. I have to release water….”
Well, it was all a little alarming, but that wasn’t surprising. It was a water workshop held in the midst of a drought.
Workshop participants speculated about what could happen if calls were made downstream, or if the drought continued into next year, but nothing really untoward had actually happened to Salida’s water supply at that point.
And as it turns out, “There is no crisis,” according to Julie Szymula, the new city administrator, who says that the city’s water engineer and water lawyers have assured her of that fact. The city also scheduled a public meeting for council members to meet with the city’s water experts. But that’s up the road a piece.
By the time Ed and I got back from Gunnison, Merle Baranczyk, the publisher of the Mountain Mail had written:
“Should the 1861 right call for water, the city would lose roughly half its water supply and will in turn require the city to take drastic action to reduce consumption. New steps could include such measures as curtailing outdoor watering and severely restricting — if not eliminating — irrigation of city parks and the golf course…. Barring a miracle taking place — such as the valley getting some serious rain during the weekend — it appears Salida will have to take some action.
“No one wants to see lawns, gardens, and landscaping plants wither away. They add to the city’s quality of life and to resident’s well being. But the city’s first priority is to conserve its available water supply for in-house uses.”
Presuming sensationalism sells papers, Baranczyk must be doing well these days. But his newspaper sure doesn’t ask many questions.
Was the city in imminent danger of losing all of its water or wasn’t it? Did the city administrator think that we should eliminate all outdoor watering? Where were the city’s water lawyers and engineers? What were they saying?
Then there’s the technical questions. Water issues are so complex that it’s generally impossible for a layman to know exactly what he should ask. But it never hurts to try the obvious questions.
Does Salida have enough available water to meet its current needs? As for this 1861 call, what’s the likelihood that it will happen? And what happens if it is made? Does the water get sucked from the river or what? And assuming Salidans save more water than the city is entitled to use, where does that water go? Downriver?
You know what? I didn’t have the answers.
But Ed and I tried to get some.
According to the Mail, Scanga said: “An 1861 call came in for water from the Highline Canal on Friday. If it had been honored, it would have pre-empted every other right on the Upper Arkansas in this district, but releases to satisfy augmentation from the Pueblo Reservoir and Fountain Creek forestalled that call.”
Well, Salidans understandably got upset about that, but Baranczyk implied that if that happened there wouldn’t be any water in our homes — and Colorado water is never that simple.
First off, we’re talking apples and oranges here. The Vandaveer water can go to our treatment plant, so in an emergency it might be desirable to negotiate with Vandaveer or other senior holders to temporarily free up some water.
But the 1861 water is down on the front range. Call or no call, our river and ditches are going to look exactly the same whether that 1861 call is honored or not. What could be messed up is our right to take water out of our basin.
In Colorado, water is divvied up — by how much there presumably is in a stream or ditch — into water rights in accordance to the date when that right was established. Senior (older) rights take precedence over junior rights, and this all gets dispersed through a system of headgates and guages that I don’t even want to think about.
During wet months, everybody usually gets water, but very junior users often go without water during peak usage times, and during a drought they’re flat out of luck and water. Salida has relatively senior rights however — although not as senior as 1861.
But augmentation water also has to be considered in this complex accounting system. Augmentation plans let users take groundwater out of a priority as long as there’s an agreement to put it back into the stream.
Thus, the river has a bunch of water in it that really isn’t there. Ordinarily a lot of groundwater would seep back into the river, but some water has been borrowed — and pumped out of wells to fill sinks and bathtubs — but it has to be replaced. And that’s how the 1861 call was “forestalled.” Water was returned to the river to meet that demand.
And that’s how such calls will continue to be satisfied. Upstream users will put water that they owe back into the river, but they’re probably not going to donate their precious drinking water. Instead, they’re going to release water they own elsewhere, like Pueblo Reservoir.
Towns on the Arkansas store their water in lots of reservoirs — North Fork, Cottonwood, O’Haver, Twin Lakes, and Pueblo, to mention some that come to mind — and they may have rights in streams or water projects, like Fry/Ark, too.
One of the Upper Arkansas Conservancy District’s primary functions is selling augmentation permits. When a new homeowner drills a well, he can’t just take water out of the ground, doing that might dry up other wells and lower the river. Instead, he has to return what he takes. Upper Ark finds water — old wells, ditch rights etc. — to return to the system.
The river is being augmented all up and down its course to keep it flowing and to allow downstream users to get their share. Without augmentation, the river below Salida and its surrounding hayfields might be more conducive to trail-biking than rafting.
So maybe Salida needs to buy more Pueblo Reservoir — or Twin Lakes or Cottonwood — water, (but I sure as tadpoles don’t know one way or the other). It’s pretty obvious, however, that it would be silly, not to mention costly, to build a reservoir above Salida just to meet calls so far downstream.
According to past council meetings, however, Salida does need more local storage capacity and more senior rights. Before now, this was usually addressed in terms of growth. We need more rights because more users are moving here, but senior rights could also help in times of drought. We shouldn’t confuse this with augmentation needs, however; to fulfill our augmentation obligations, we don’t necessarily have to have water we can get to our treatment plant.
The thing is, a water plan is more complicated than a stock portfolio, so before we even think of messing with ours we should call in our experts.
Also, regarding some of Baranczyk’s comments in The Mountain Mail, in the event of a very serious shortage, in which indoor water supplies, sewage treatment, and fire protection are threatened, domestic water supplies gain precedence over industrial and agricultural supplies. At that point, industrial and ag rights can be condemned and bought for full market price — because such provisions safeguard the public health.
If this drought progresses to desertification of Sahara proportions, however, then the President will no doubt be dropping by with a cheery speech and a truckload of bottled water. And by then, we won’t be worried about our trees, gardens, crops or livestock anymore, anyway — because they’ll be gone. When you hear about towns going totally dry, it’s because there’s no water left in their basin — it’s not because some farmer demanded the water for his alfalfa.
Right now, however, Salida’s water situation is all right (at least according to the city if not the Mountain Mail).
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t hardship in the basin; there is. A lot of junior rights have been pre-empted and a lot of ditches are dry — which goes a long way in explaining why the tenor of that water workshop was anxious.
But something happened at that meeting. Some of the discourse was a mite hyperbolic in the first place, then the information got spread and amplified, and pretty soon a lot of people thought their cherished trees would be converted into firewood by fall.
Quite a few of the people we talked to blamed Smith for the hoopla, some blamed Scanga, many blamed the Mountain Mail and a couple thought all of the above was the best choice. But it may be just as accurate to blame the drought. In a Denver news poll last week, 80% of respondents believed that the drought would continue into next year — and they didn’t think that Colorado would be able to handle it. With that kind of optimism, it’s surprising that talk about shortages hasn’t caused a run on bottled water.
Yep, the drought may be instigating panic. But I blame any befuddlement from that workshop on the subject of the meeting: water. In Colorado, water is so damned difficult to understand that it’s not surprising that nearly everyone got it wrong.
One of the featured topics at the water conference in Gunnison was water education, and several speakers talked about how we can educate the public about water.
Personally, I’ve been to dozens of water seminars, and read a zillion articles (or at least it seems like a zillion articles), and I have even come to understand (usually) when people start arguing about things like beneficial use, in-stream flows, and the Doctrine of Prior Appropriations. But the most valuable thing I’ve learned about water, is to know when I’m in over my head.
In my view, the UAWCD/Salida water workshop probably never should have happened. Ordinarily, emergency matters aren’t aired at workshops, yet the matters brought up at that meeting sounded urgent.
Apparently, that wasn’t really the case, however. Despite Smith’s warning, the city had not approached Vandaveer “by the end of the week.” And even though it may have sounded impossible if you read about it in The Mountain Mail, Salida made it through the next weekend without incident.
But it was a little scary that our city council was meeting to discuss water issues without our city engineer and a bevy of water attorneys to advise them. After all, when you go deep into water issues, having experts along is the equivalent of having a life vest.
And although Terry Scanga is an expert on the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, he’s not the best advisor for Salida. On the contrary, last year when Ed interviewed former Salida City Manager Scott Hahn about a water district election, Hahn said: “The relationship between Upper Arkansas and the City of Salida is competitive, not cooperative. Their interests are different from ours, and I don’t see that they’re doing anything for the people of Salida.”
Obviously the city and the water district don’t always see eye to eye.
To be fair, however, in this case one of Scanga’s main objectives was to propose that the two entities — the water district and the city — go together to build storage facilities and drill some wells. And that’s what the water district is for, acquiring water and “construction of works” for its constituents, which includes Salida.
And Salida has been talking about building a reservoir recently. So Scanga’s suggestion that we go together on a project was perfectly logical.
But any joint water project would have to be carefully negotiated because the water needs of rural and urban users are not the same. And in the last few years, concerned citizens have been petitioning for elections on Water Conservancy Boards because court-appointed members haven’t necessarily been representative of the water users in their district.
Many conservancy boards are perceived to be biased toward ranchers, ag uses, and real estate development — because in terms of numbers, townies and businessmen who rely on the water for its rafting, fishing and recreational potential are often totally missing from seats on conservancy boards. Although board members will tell you that they have to have people “knowledgeable” in water, by that they inevitably mean irrigators rather than city planners or environmentalists. In terms of representation, it’s as if all U.S. congressmen came from the south.
And Upper Ark has definitely been one of those traditional “good-old-boy” districts, heavily inclined toward agricultural interests and rural usage — which doesn’t make its district manager the best advisor for the City of Salida. There’s only so much water and water storage available in our valley, and Salida and the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy district have sparred over resources in the past.
But that doesn’t mean that council members shouldn’t ask Scanga for his opinion. Scanga’s knowledgeable and friendly, and we always ask for his opinion. Council members and Mountain Mail publishers, however, should remember that the district’s interests and the city’s may not be the same.
If I had to pick the most common mistake that public boards make, that may be it. All too often rural boards end up gleaning much of their information from people with vested interests — especially when the topic is something difficult like water or finance. Over the years, I’ve seen school board after school board rely almost entirely on the advice of the superintendent. Yet frequently the superintendent’s salary, benefits, office space, or position are directly affected by those decisions. Yet faced with whether to buy a Ford or a Chevy, the same people wouldn’t call their local Chevy dealer and let him decide.
So it was a little scary that the council met with UAWCD without having their water experts in attendance.
But all’s well that ends well. Now, the city’s experts have been consulted, and they’ll be meeting with everybody who attends the next water workshop.
Then, our experts can converse with Upper Ark to develop water storage proposals to present to the city council. And that’s the way it should be.
But even so, Salida’s water misunderstandings weren’t over. At Monday night’s meeting, the Salida city council passed an Ordinance on first reading:
“The City may, by order of the City Administrator, upon the City Administrator’s determination that there exists a shortage of water within the distribution system, restrict or prohibit the use of water for uses to include, but not limited to, the watering of lawns….”
The Ordinance goes on to list the criteria for regulation, which include an every third day watering restriction.
But on Tuesday, August 6th, The Mountain Mail said: “Salida City Council members adopted on first reading Monday night an ordinance tightening water restrictions.”
The story continued: “If approved on second reading at the August 19 meeting, water users will have fewer days to water, shorter watering periods and potentially stiffer fines for non-compliance.”
From some of the discussion at the city council meeting, I have a feeling that quite a few people thought that the ordinance said exactly what The Mountain Mail reported. And a few councilmen even discussed whether they should keep the every third day restrictions in effect through the winter.
But the Ordinance didn’t leave that up to the council, and it didn’t impose those restrictions, either. That’s up to the city administrator. The ordinance allowed the city to impose every third day — or other — restrictions upon the “determination that there exists a shortage of water within the distribution system.”
City ordinances aren’t quite as perplexing as water laws, but they’re right up there. And now there appeared to be two very different interpretations of Salida’s proposed water regulations.
During the meeting, the council’s enthusiasm for conservation was a bit intimidating. Members suggested an every third day schedule with a three-hour watering limit, planting rye, and putting in sprinklers with timer systems.
(Actually sprinklers have come up at council meetings, before, and to make this clear, once again, sprinklers do not reduce water usage, they increase it — especially in communities with variable pressure — probably because only very hi-tech sprinkler systems and old-fashioned low-tech humans adjust for water spraying over the street, misdirected nozzles, and rain.)
As the discussion progressed, I half-way expected to see a city employee at my door to inspect the bricks in my toilet. But conservation methods that were impractical, impossible to enforce, or created hardships were dismissed, and the council voted.
Sometimes city councils appall me, by making decisions without discussion or dissent — as if the most important consideration were collaboration rather than sound decisions or representation. But this council didn’t band together like boys in the hood, and they didn’t rush or interrupt each other or the citizens who spoke. Instead the council presented their opposing ideas politely, and the mayor made sure everyone in the audience had a chance to speak.
Although it seemed like Salida’s council may have been prodded by the scare tactics and exaggerations of the previous workshop, it merely passed an ordinance that outlined emergency measures that could be adopted during this drought.
Or at least that’s what I thought, but The Mail seemed to have a different take on the matter. So I made some calls.
When I asked councilman Jim Elmore for his impression, he agreed that the first water workshop had unduly alarmed people, but he didn’t think it had affected the ordinance. He pointed out that Salida’s new watering ordinance had not come out of that meeting; it had been discussed by the council before the meeting with Upper Ark. According to Elmore, the council had decided to adopt new restrictions which could help with drought after the city’s old regulations were deemed unenforceable.
As for the purpose of the new ordinance, Elmore thought the restrictions could be implemented when need be, but weren’t necessarily permanent; then he pointed out that changes could still be made.
“There’s been some confusion,” Elmore said. “But now, having a new full-time administrator, I’m hoping and confident that some of these matters will be resolved.”
As for the new administrator, Julie Szymula officially took office Monday, August 5; although she often accompanied the interim administrator, during the preceding week and all of the aforementioned meetings Gary Suiter was in office.
When asked whether the new ordinance imposed restrictions or merely gave the city the option of imposing restrictions, Szymula pointed out that the new ordinance was still under discussion. “This is a work in progress,” she said.
And she definitely wasn’t eager to say more.
I asked her about the discrepancy in how people were interpreting the new ordinance, and she said it was still changing. I reworded my request — several times.
And she said it could still be tweaked. It really didn’t matter; it wasn’t final. I should come to the next meeting.
Finally, I lost patient and asked, “What’s the point of coming to a meeting to talk about an ordinance, when nobody knows what that ordinance says? Why don’t you just tell me whether it goes into effect as soon as it’s passed or not?”
It doesn’t. As the ordinance was passed on first reading, the every third day watering schedule and fines had to be ordered and announced. And according to Szymula, before any changes are made in watering restrictions, everyone will have a chance to air their views. Then, presuming the ordinance passes, there will be an implementation schedule and an education campaign, and the city will try to make provisions for people with new landscaping and special needs. At that point, Szymula thinks that the every third day restriction will probably go into effect for the rest of the summer, but those restrictions aren’t necessarily permanent, and they may not be the rule next summer.
Which just goes to show: if you’re persistently obnoxious people will answer your questions just to get you to hang up. Maybe I have a future as a telemarketer.
So Salida has a new ordinance in progress which has quite a few detractors like myself — people who don’t necessarily object to a conservation plan, but who really hate the idea that they can’t forget to water for days on end and then hastily make amends when their Columbines whither. Real conservation measures would give me credit if I saved water, instead of putting me on some arbitrary schedule.
But I understand the accounting problems of doing it my way, and this ordinance is fairly reasonable, assuming it doesn’t get scrambled by all the tweaking still to come.
But after a mere three days on the job, this topic had our new administrator walking on eggs. And well it should. The course of water issues in Salida seldom runs smoothly, whether the subject be water meters, water lines, watering restrictions, a reservoir, a pumping station, a Wal-Mart connection, or the Salida Hot Springs Pool.
But things are improving. At first it sounded like the city was going to ban all outside watering and run dry regardless. Then it turned out that there was no immediate emergency, and the city was contemplating every third day watering restrictions. And now it turns out that even those restrictions aren’t necessarily permanent.
Yes, things are looking up. Maybe someday soon I’ll be able to go back to watering extravagantly every fourth or fifth day — which is my favorite way.
Hey, the way things are going, maybe it will actually start raining more.
