Thanks to Council for Demonstrating Water Wisdom

I want to thank and applaud the Salida City Council, in particular Mayor Chuck Rose who was in the unenviable position of tie-breaker, for the foresight recently displayed when they created a watershed protection district.

Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, in creating the district, the city did not overstep its authority. Instead, it joined more than 20 communities around the state in exercising their state-granted right to protect their town’s drinking water supply.

Without exception, as outlined in the enabling state legislation, each of the 20-plus towns – from small towns like Basalt, Craig and Pagosa Springs to larger cities like Grand Junction, Fort Collins and Denver – have passed similar measures that, by state law, allow them to protect their waterworks and water supply from injury and pollution up to five miles above the point from which the water is taken.

For a case study of the benefits of protecting water supply, one need look no further than March 2008, when 1,300 people got sick and one person died from a Salmonella outbreak, the source of which was Alamosa’s water supply. Animal contamination of one of Alamosa’s ground water storage tanks meant that for three weeks 8,900 residents had to depend on one gallon of bottled water a day until the town was able to flush and disinfect its water lines and restore municipal water service. Restaurant owners, whose margins are already thin, were hardest hit as costs rose because they had to buy bottled water and pre-packaged ice from sources outside the town just to be able to serve the few brave souls who dared to eat out. While the exact conditions that precipitated the water crisis in Alamosa may not be present in Salida, the point is this: polluted municipal water supplies can have devastating effects on a community. So if we can, by law, put extra layers of protection in place, why wouldn’t we?

A City of Salida 2009 Drinking Water City of Salida 2009 Drinking Water Consumer Confidence Report for calendar year 2008 ranks this community’s susceptibility rating, meaning the possibility of contamination to any of our three main water sources, as either moderately high or high. The city water portfolio includes one surface water and two groundwater sources. Potential sources of pollution come from the following: sewage treatment plants, septic systems, existing / abandoned mine sites, high and low intensity residential development, pasture, row crops mixed forest, septic systems, road grading and above ground storage tanks. So if the new regulation impacts the golf course development on property formerly known as Friend Ranch or any other new development that could potentially pollute our city’s water sources, I say, “hooray.”

Not only do I disagree with anyone who calls on City Council to rescind the resolution establishing the water protection district, I fervently hope this action is just the start of more good things to come with respect to water in this community and the greater watershed around us.

To borrow from a statement recently made by a man in the Roaring Fork Valley where citizens and stakeholders are joining together to create a watershed management master plan, “We can propose some regulatory changes that could have some impact, but the real change will be based on people having a different relationship with water and a culture of water responsibility becoming part of our regional ethic. That cannot be mandated.”

I hope that City Council’s action to proactively protect Salida’s water for this and future generations is just the start of a community-wide paradigm shift in the ways we think about and plan for water for water quality and supply into the future.