Grand Ideas and Dry Wells
7 Comments Published March 5th, 2010 in Southern Utah People, Southern Utah Talking Points and Questions.One of a series on why things are going to Hell in a handbasket.
The Washington County Water Conservancy District (A name that encloses a lie just as surely as North Korea calling themselves the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”.), a totally unelected body that seems to have unlimited taxing authority, is stampeding into the construction of a $1.7 billion pipeline to avoid facing the awful reality that at some point we’ll have to stop tearing up the desert to build suburbs. To quote an opposition group, “Citizens for Dixie’s Future”:
“… the cost of the proposed Lake Powell pipeline project, including interest on bonds, will exceed $1.7 billion dollars. The residents of Washington, Kane and Iron County will be responsible for paying this debt, most likely without federal or state funding. This would be the largest and most expensive non-federally or state funded public works project in Utah’s history. Never has such a project been paid by such a small percentage of the state’s population.”
The chances of stopping them seem pretty slim to me. According to the web page of the media company (ie – professional liars) that was hired to sell this bill of goods to the public:
“Vanguard Media Group developed key messages, visals (sic) and collateral materials to accurately (even sic-er) tell the Lake Powell Pipeline story. While the majority of information and educational effort targeted legislators, our secondary audience was the community at large. We developed an set of tactics for this audience, which would further influence legislators to put items in place for the project to begin.
All three bills relating to the Lake Powell Pipeline passed during the 2006 Utah legislative session. Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. signed the legislation into law at a ceremonial press event in Cedar City on May 3, 2006.”
Opponents managed to at least get a public airing of the issues last January. Cory Cram, watershed and environment coordinator for the Washington County Water Conservancy District showed up to defend it. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, “He assured those attending the meeting that Utah’s water won’t be taken away by California and that the lake will always have enough water for the intake valves to pump.”
Yah, right. Here’s a news item from Bloomberg a few days ago:
“Since 1999, Lake Mead has dropped about 1 percent a year. By 2012, the lake’s surface could fall below the existing pipe that delivers 40 percent of (Las Vegas’) water.”
I’ll bet they never thought that would happen either.
But wait! A white knight has appeared on the bone-dry shale hills overlooking Green River, Utah! Two “public servants” (another name that encapsulates a lie) are working a different angle that will suck up the non-existant water before it even gets to Lake Powell. Aaron Tilton is both a Utah legislator and a big investor in a company that wants to build a nuclear power plant near Green River. The water would be supplied by the Kane County Water Conservancy District. That organization is run by another legislator, Mike Noel. Both are sucking on both ends of the straw by using their public jobs to feather their private nests. Their “grand idea” will completely use up 50,000 acre feet of water every year from the Green River.
As it turns out, both the Lake Powell Pipeline and the Green River Nuclear Plant are shooting for around 2020 to come online.
There was once a “good war”. Back in the 1400’s, the powerful House of York and equally powerful House of Lancaster got into a tiff about who ought to be King of England in what history now calls, “The War of the Roses”. Gunpowder didn’t come into common use until slightly later so heavy armor, expensive weapons, and huge horses to carry it all was the way war was waged. It took a lot of money to buy all that stuff so the people waging the war were the actual nobles and paid soldiers. Common folk mainly got out of the way and let them have at it. A lot of rich nobility who really deserved it died in that war.
I’m genuinely looking forward to watching our own local nobility slug it out in Utah’s War of the Cactus.
And after you get through enjoying the “nobility slug it out,” Dan, where are you going to get water in 2020?
GREAT question. I’m so HAPPY you asked.
Springdale has the distinct priviledge of not being part of the Washington Water Conservancy District. We operate our own water system and we get the water, for the most part, out of the sandstone cliffs of Zion Canyon.
If you read the tourist signs in the canyon, you will see that the water that flows out of springs in the canyon fell as rain on the top of the plateau 5,000 years ago. That means that if it stops raining entirely, those springs will keep going for about 5,000 years.
And you know that my personal time perspective is a lot shorter than that anyway.
You can see this clearly in the river (pun intended). When it hasn’t rained for a long time (like last fall), the river will drop to a certain minimum level and become crystal clear. All of the water at that point is coming out of springs.
And, just in case you were wondering. We have about the highest water rates around here, and we’re also about the only entity that has actually created a water conservation target and a plan to support it as mandated by the “Vision Dixie” charade that took place a few years ago and gets great lip service (but no action) from the rest of the County.
That really WAS a great decision you made, lo so many years ago, to purchase property in Springdale and build a home there.
What municipalities, what areas, will be impacted by the water that will not be there to flow through that pipeline? I assume it’s going to affect people from Washington County (but not Springdale) south and west?
Well … I don’t know.
Since Washington County will incur the debt obligation, Springdale will be impacted by a county bankruptcy just like other parts of the county. The infernal pipeline is being built “for” Iron, Washington, and Kane counties. (Which leads me to the further question, what is double straw sucker and Kane County Water Conservancy District boss, Mike Noel, doing? I don’t know the answer to that either. And maybe neither does he.)
But Washington County actually has plenty of developable water for the near and even medium term. One of the arguments the opponents make is that not only is it not going to work, it’s not even necessary.
The opponents say (And I, for one, believe them.) that this is being done primarily to make double sure that tearing up the desert for suburbs will not only be possible in the future, it will be required. The funding for this is supposed to come from impact fees from new development, so it turns that old saying, “If you build it, they will come.” right on it’s head. If they build it, Washington County will be forced to tear up the desert for new suburbs from now until Kingdom Come (which … in the view of some … is next Thursday or something … but that’s a different subject) because that’s the only way that the damn thing can be paid for.
If they build it, they will have to come.
Developers will own the county, lock, stock, and pipeline.
And, yes, moving to Springdale was perhaps the second smartest thing I have ever done. (Shacking up with Roxy was the first.)
Amen to your last post.
I am not persuaded that the pipeline is needed – quite the opposite in fact.
Most of the water used in Washington County – by a significant amount – is used for landscaping – in a desert !!
I am angry that apparently the residents of Washington County will have no direct say in whether the pipeline will be built. There will be no vote on the pipeline itself or the financing scheme – which as you say – will place the taxpayers of the County on the hook of financial responsibility.
Dan,
Ever the nit-picker, I found a nit you missed in the quote from Vanguard Media (pile on, kick ‘em while they’re down). Add this to the “sics” you noted: “We developed an set of tactics . . . ” (“an” set?)
I loved your “even sic-er”!!
I only wish they were down.
The most discouraging thing is that in spite of all this, these bozos were successful!