Key concerns with respect to water supply and delivery in the county: Though supply is a primary consideration of these questions, delivery – namely infrastructure – is perhaps even more fundamental to the county’s comprehensive planning efforts and to the related future the county is shaping. While the county has sufficient water – or options to obtain it – to fuel future growth, there exists inadequate infrastructure to bring that water to where it is needed. Now is the time to address that gap.
The Water Advisory Commission is near the end of its task and presented its findings to county commissioners last week. Specifically, the group answered the five questions it was charged with:
Should the county be concerned about lack of water supply, infrastructure or system inefficiencies?
Should the county adopt or even exceed state rules requiring proof of water for proposed housing developments with central water systems?
Should the county operate water docks and if so, where? If the county purchases water from Lake Nighthorse, how should it be used?
And would a hydrological study of county groundwater be worth doing?
While there are some inefficiencies in the county’s water systems – regulatory, management-derived and practical – the water commission’s primary concern is with infrastructure and primarily its lack thereof.
“It is clear to the commission that there is a lack of water infrastructure in La Plata County, thus the need for the creation and development of large domestic water systems such as La Plata Archuleta Water District and La Plata West Water Authority,” the water commission wrote in its report to the county. “The anticipated size of the service areas of these entities is a testament to the fact that there are very large areas of the County that do not have reliable water sources.”
This gap, the commission found, has broader implications for current and future county residents: “These unregulated systems and wells pose significant health risks to La Plata County residents, both because some residents lack access to a clean, reliable source of water, while others are at risk of running out of water due to lack of capacity and infrastructure in their systems.”
These are significant concerns that are essential to incorporate into the revision of the La Plata County comprehensive plan currently under way. The Water Advisory Commission recommends that the infrastructure issue be addressed through special taxing districts formed by neighborhoods seeking to improve their water-delivery systems. This is a workable solution that will require residents to invest but will not unduly burden the county to commit its limited resources to a massive water infrastructure project.
As La Plata County Commissioner Brad Blake said, “We’ve been fighting for years and years over the wrong things and not paying enough attention to water. ... It’s going to be the conversation for the future.”
Blake is correct, and the county’s attempt to get ahead of the conversation by assigning the water commission to study the issue was wise. Its recommendations to support water docks – through staff and in-kind services – but not build them, to forgo a hydrological groundwater study and to ensure that new development with central water systems can demonstrate adequate water supply provide a clear focus for the county moving forward. The Water Advisory Commission did good work for La Plata County.
