April 21, 2008--On the same page, but millions apart (Pagosa Daily Post)
In 2006, the Town of Pagosa Springs and the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District each imposed a new fee for a reservoir to be built one mile north of Town. They proposed two very different fees for two very different reservoirs. The Town fee is based on a 12,500 acre-foot reservoir recommended in the 2003 Appraisal Report of PAWS’s engineers, Harris Water Engineering. The Town consultants, Economic and Planning Systems, divided Harris’s estimated cost of $40,500,000 by the almost 36,000 households (or household equivalents for businesses) the reservoir would serve. This resulted in a fee of $1129. The Town and PAWS agreed to disagree about their fees in 2006. Local builders and businessmen complained bitterly, but organized no opposition to the imposition of the PAWS reservoir fee in 2006. In the ailing national and depressed local economy of 2008, agreeing to disagree about this fee is no longer agreeable to them.
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