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Most news these days is depressing, so it was with some relief last week that I read a short item: The natural resources committee of Club 20 had voted overwhelmingly to oppose Referendum A on our November ballot.
Referendum A was put on the ballot by our legislature when it was in session earlier this year. If we approve, the measure would allow the state to borrow up to $2 billion for building water projects.
Club 20 is based in Grand Junction. It's an organization of public and private entities, like county governments and chambers of commerce, mostly on the Western Slope. The resolution from the Club 20 natural resources committee will go before the full body when Club 20 meets in September.
The committee resolution was a surprise because Club 20 generally supports water development. Further, one main supporter of Referendum A is Greg Walcher, director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, and he was Club 20's executive director for a decade before moving to his Denver job with the Owens administration.
So what's with Referendum A?
In essence, it requires the Colorado Water Conservation Board (a body you didn't elect) to draw up a shopping list of water projects that cost at least $5 million. By 2005, the board is supposed to submit the list to the governor.
There will be at a minimum of two such projects in
different basins,
as well as $100 million for improving
existing dams and reservoirs. Then the governor picks at
least one project, the board issues bonds, and the bonds
are repaid by water users.
That may sound somewhat reasonable at first, but as
state Rep. Matt Smith (R-Grand Junction) observed, With
Referendum A, we don't know what the projects are, we don't
know of a project that has a revenue stream and I don't
believe there is mitigation in it.
To put this another way, can you think of a water project in Colorado that was not built because there wasn't enough money for it?
Two Forks certainly had ample funding available. It wasn't built in 1973 because it was vetoed by Republican Gov. John Vanderhoof, and it wasn't built in 1989 because it was killed by the Environmental Protection Agency of Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush.
(I mention the GOP here because I have often read that those evil tree-hugger Democrats killed Two Forks. While as a Democrat I would like my party to take credit for this, honesty compels me to give credit where it's due.)
Arapaho County's problems with the Union Park project in the upper Gunnison River had nothing to do with money. The main problem was the failure to persuade a water judge that there was any significant amount of water there available for diversion.
This list might continue, but the point is that water providers -- cities, towns, irrigation districts, conservancy districts, etc. -- are already quite capable of issuing bonds to finance projects that benefit their customers. Worthwhile projects would still be funded and built, without the Referendum A money.
Note that Referendum A doesn't provide a subsidy -- the bonds it issues would be revenue bonds, paid for by the water users. It's not a way we could all help Walsenburg improve its water system.
So why do we need it? Referendum A is not going to build anything worthwhile that wouldn't be built anyway.
Perhaps the word worthwhile
explains the real
reason for Referendum A. These bonds could be issued
without a public vote, or indeed, much public involvement
at all, since the decisions would be made by the Colorado
Water Conservation Board and the governor.
So, you're a developer and you'd like to annex your proposed Gated Heights Vista subdivision to the City of Fort Springs, which says it doesn't have enough water to serve you, and acquiring the water would mean issuing bonds and perhaps an election.
The last thing you want is a public discussion -- so get the Colorado Water Conservation Board to approve this worthy project of augmenting the Fort Springs municipal water supply. The governor agrees, and all the good people of Fort Springs get to pay higher water rates so that there will be a supply for your subdivision. And they didn't get to vote on whether they wanted to do this or not.
That's the only way that Referendum A makes any sense -- it's a way to avoid those messy public votes on whether we want to go into debt and pay higher water bills, not because it's in our own interest, but for the benefit of developers who make campaign contributions.
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