After nearly a decade, a door has been shut, a motion has been made, a loan will be closed. During Tuesday’s Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation board of director’s meeting, with both directors Mike Church and Roy Vega excused, the board unanimously passed a motion to send a letter, “requesting substantial completion” to the Colorado Water Conservation Board regarding their $11. 2 million loan, of which only $9.2 million has been drawn and used. The letter will be sent to Kirk Russell, CWCB’s finance section chief, who had recently told PAWSD that he needed a letter of intent and direction by Sept. 18 to present to the CWCB board. PAWSD Business Manager Shellie Peterson will write the letter to inform the CWCB board that PAWSD does not, with the current board, intend on building Dry Gulch Reservoir and they will not be drawing the remainder of the loan out. The PAWSD board used $9.2 million of the CWCB loan, along with the San Juan Water Conservancy District’s $1 million CWCB grant, to purchase the Running Iron Ranch in 2007 as a reservoir site. Prior to this letter, there had been discussion by previous PAWSD boards considering use of the rest of the funds to buy a small portion of the adjacent Laverty property in order to have enough land to build the reservoir.

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