Pagosa Springs Rotary Club
Rod Proffitt addressed the Pagosa Springs Rotary Club last week. The San Juan Water Conservancy District is one of fifty such entities created in 1987 to serve the water needs of the majority of Archuleta County. The District is not a water provider, but makes sure water resources are available for beneficial use to those who do provide water for the community. Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District is the water provider for this area.
Mr. Proffitt was speaking principally about the San Juan Water Conservancy's mill levy increase that is on the November ballot. The mill levy increase is intended to support efforts to obtain approximately 109 acres if forest service land and 23 acres of private ranch land necessary to build a water project associated with the original Weber Running Iron Ranch, or better known as Dry Gulch.
Mr. Proffitt explained that the project has changed substantially since the challenges by Trout Unlimited and associated Supreme Court rulings indicating that 50 year projections were more appropriate for water storage needs. The original size of reservoir planning was found to be speculative and basically set water planning precedent in Colorado. The changed project is now operating under the name of the San Juan Headwaters Project in a revised scope of 11,000 acre feet storage and minus the previous pumping operations from the San Juan River.
More information and details regarding the efforts of the San Juan Water Conservancy District can be found on their website at www.sjwcd.org