At its March 18 meeting, the San Juan Water Conservancy District (SJWCD) Board of Directors discussed a letter from the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) responding to a previous letter from the SJWCD.
The SJWCD letter objected to PAWSD’s efforts to extend a gravel mining lease on Running Iron Ranch, the proposed site of SJWCD’s reservoir project, and raised concerns about PAWSD’s compliance with a three-way agreement between SJWCD, PAWSD and the Colorado Water Conservation Board concerning the ranch and the reservoir project.
The PAWSD response letter, approved by the PAWSD Board of Directors at a March 7 special meeting, objects to the SJWCD’s claims of potential violations of the three-way agreement, notes the SJWCD’s role in finding partners and funding to move the reservoir project forward, and requests a written update on the SJWCD’s progress.
The SJWCD letter was covered in the Feb. 29 issue of The SUN, while the PAWSD response and the creation of a Running Iron Ranch subcommittee of the PAWSD Board of Directors was covered in the March 14 issue.
SJWCD board president Candace Jones opened the discussion at the March 18 meeting, commenting that she was “disappointed with the tone of the response.”
However, she commented that finding opportunities for common ground with PAWSD is “essential” and noted the creation of the PAWSD Running Iron Ranch subcommittee.
Jones commented she had not heard what position PAWSD has on the extension of the mining lease on the ranch, which she noted is the central issue in the SJWCD’s letter, and proposed that the board should invite the PAWSD subcommittee to a joint work session to discuss the topic.
“We should start focused and see if we can take some small steps to find common ground on any issues,” she said, adding that she does not want to distract the PAWSD board from its focus on the district’s capital projects and noting that the two districts largely overlap.
“We share the same constituents,” she said. “We should be supportive of their mission, and I hope that they will be, at some time, supportive of our mission because we ultimately serve all the same people. ... The view opposing the reservoir I think is increasingly out of step with public sentiment, in large part because of the environmental conditions under which we live.”
Jones added that the district is at a “unique point in time” in terms of reservoir funding opportunities.
“One lesson we can take from PAWSD’s recent experience with rate increases is that failing to plan for downsides is painful when the downside happens,” she added. “And, so, water storage is not going to happen in this community if we don’t get started and keep at it, and so that’s where I want us to focus, is on our objectives and reaching out to the community, building relationships and finding common ground to move forward.”
She commented that, in “due course” the SJWCD would review the PAWSD letter further and respond to it.
SJWCD board member Rob Hagberg asked if the district would eventually respond to the specific requests in the PAWSD letter.
Jones commented that she would start by addressing the extension of the gravel lease and that she would propose having representatives of the SJWCD subcommittees working on advancing the reservoir and on finding supplemental uses for the property during the reservoir planning process serve as points of contact to PAWSD.
She stated that she would want these points of contact to reach out to PAWSD and attempt to arrange a work session with PAWSD representatives where the discussion would focus on the gravel mining and grazing leases for the Running Iron Ranch.
Jones suggested that the leases might be “easier to tackle” and a good step to build the district’s relationship with PAWSD.
In response to a comment from SJWCD Executive Assistant Sally High pointing out the involvement of the SJWCD lawyer in the issue of the leases, Jones commented, “At some point, you get to the leases and you need the lawyers, but, for the most part, I would really like to invite a discussion and see how that goes.”
SJWCD board members Charles Riehm and Bill Nobles volunteered to reach out to the PAWSD subcommittee and attempt to arrange a work session.
Jones pointed out that, if only two board members from each board are involved, the meeting would not have to be public due to not meeting the legal requirements for a public meeting.
josh@pagosasun.com
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