Bad acronym… Smart people

Meetings are not where anyone should choose to spend their leisure time. If the choice is a government meeting or cleaning the bathroom, the latter is usually a better decision. But according to Evan Dawson’s report of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District meeting held June 1 with representatives of the Colorado Division of Natural Resources, this was a meeting that had potential entertainment value.
I get the feeling some of these sophisticated city folks look at us country mice as a bunch of slow, backwater plebes. That is where the sport and entertainment comes in.
As I understand it, the state started poking around to take a claim for some of the water in our valley to service future population and industrial (mining) expansion in the state… primarily for Front Range growth expected by 2050. They are looking ahead to make sure that the extra four million people anticipated in Denver in 40 years can water their lawns. It is easier to come here and claim water that may or may not really be available than to explain good conservation practices to people who want bluegrass lawns in the arid, high mountain plains of Colorado. Now, just the idea of this concept could send any rational human being into orbit.
The Front Rangers apparently started poking around with their idea to tag 200,000 acre feet of Blue Mesa water last summer and it was only this month that they came over the pass to talk to us. These urbane bureaucrats apparently think they just need to pat their country cousins on the head and tell us it’s all for the common good and we will understand.
That’s where the sport comes in. The UGRWCD may be one the worst acronyms in the county but one of the smartest boards anywhere. Comprised of people with widely varying political views, this board knows its subject matter. They do not suffer fools gladly.
So reading the article, I might have chosen to delay cleaning the bathroom to go to this meeting. As I read it, the board brought a focused, thoughtful, seriousness to the discussion. Voices as politically diverse as Ken Spann and Steve Glazer, Dennis Steckel and Steve Schechter put the representatives of the state on the spot. It wasn’t flippant. It wasn’t mean. It was adult. But when the state reps ran into the intelligent buzz saw that is the water board, they frankly came across as uninformed bumblers casting a hook in the water without a worm. We’ve probably all been there and it isn’t a good place to be.
The board had asked the state to answer several basic questions if they were going to try to put the water under contract to wash cars in Aurora four decades from now. They couldn’t answer any of them. When the Front Rangers stumbled around about reasoning and cost and process, the board was patient. When the board members explained some of the very real potential problems and “poison pills” in the plan, the state reps either simply ignored the stated pitfalls or didn’t appear to understand. They will.
Just what is the point of state bureaucrats to start claiming Blue Mesa water with no real plan and poo-pooing their strategy as being very preliminary in nature?
It just doesn’t smell right.
While it may not be the sexiest subject in the valley, water is one of the most important. We can expect this particular item and similar issues to be discussed again. It is beneficial to all of us to have a buzz saw of a board looking after our interests and intelligently questioning those who stumble in to try to lay claim to a precious resource.
And I have to say… witnessing the UGRWCD board clean up the Front Rangers might have been worth putting off scrubbing the bathroom tile.