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After years of telling us to save every precious drop of water, the Salida city government last week told us we had to waste water or face a $100 fine.
Naturally, this results from an effort to save water. In 1990, our General Assembly passed the Water Metering Act, which required meters for all domestic water providers with more than 600 customers.
Talk about an unfunded mandate. The city did provide some long-term payment plans for householders who couldn't quickly spring for the cost of digging the pits, placing the bottle-shaped fiberglass shells, installing the meters, then covering it up.
But the water lines are only four feet deep. That seems to be below the frost line hereabouts, but the recent sustained cold spells have invaded some pits. The meter freezes, and city crews have to go out in wretched weather to thaw it.
Thus the recent order to prevent freezing by leaving some water running inside. If you don't, and the meter freezes, then you'll be charged $100 for thawing.
So, the meters that were supposed to save water now require us to waste water by just running it down the drain.
The real problem, of course, is that Salida, like many other communities in Colorado, was not designed to handle a long stretch of snow and cold. You figure that every winter will bring some snow every now and again; you push it aside, our brilliant sunshine arrives and the snow goes away before the next storm.
But with weekly storms and frequent incursions of arctic air, that hasn't happened yet in Salida, or in much of Colorado. I still read of city residents complaining about streets that have been covered with hard-packed ice since before Christmas.
Towns that generally get a lot of winter know how to handle it. I survived several winters in Kremmling, which might have been the warmest town in Middle Park. But that's not saying a lot; there were many 30-below nights, and you seldom saw liquid water outdoors between Halloween and Easter.
Kremmling water lines were seven feet deep, so they didn't freeze. But household lines could, so we all kept a tap flowing. As for snow removal, Kremmling just didn't bother on the side streets -- the town ran a grader to smooth the surface after every decent snowfall, and left it at that.
You got around town with a four-wheel-drive vehicle, sometimes chained. For a chance of having it start in the morning, you plugged in the tank heater every night.
Failing that, you could don cross-country skis, which worked fine unless you had to cross U.S. 40, which the state highway department kept too clear for skiing. Or you walked, and if you were going to the store, you pulled a sled so you'd have a way to carry your groceries home; sometimes there would be half a dozen sleds parked outside the market.
Breckenridge had a different approach to snow in the late 1970s. It plowed with a vengeance after every snowfall, and there were strict parking laws to insure that the plows could reach every square foot of street. If you left your car parked on the street overnight, it got towed and the plows went through. But streets remained slick; when I worked there, there were streets my car would slide backwards down, and one time a snowplow slid and tipped over on Main Street.
Gunnison handles winter with extremely wide streets, so there's room for the plowed snow to be piled in the center until it can be hauled off. Meanwhile the sun can get to what's left.
Salida's narrow streets make it more pleasant to walk around town, but the long shadows of winter keep some shaded narrow streets slick. That's one of the trade-offs in dealing with a hard winter.
Towns that usually get a lot of winter have been built for it, but there are costs. Most of us in small towns don't want to maintain extra-wide streets, and we prefer not to have to move our cars for street plowing. If the city proposed burying all water lines seven feet deep, we'd complain about how the municipal government was wasting money by preparing for unlikely scenarios -- the same way I once complained when the Kremmling Police Chief wanted to organize a SWAT Team.
Meanwhile, I'll enjoy wasting water, especially with official consent. Every drop wasted is a drop that won't go to a new subdivision.
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