Rico debates water rights

Rico debates water rights

Oct. 14, 2000

By Jim Mimiaga
Journal Staff Writer

A proposal being considered to better secure Rico’s hold on its water rights for town is meeting some opposition within the small mountain community, it was revealed at the Dolores Water Conservancy District meeting Thursday.

"We need to build more community consensus and dialogue on this sensitive issue before going ahead," Dave Allen, a Rico planning board member, told the board. "It will take some time. Right now the current proposal has some opposition."

"It sounds like we are back to the beginning on this issue," said DWCD President Don Schwindt. "Let’s identify the principles we can agree on and then start on the details from there."

The latest obstacle represents the third time that the issue has been revisited, debated, and then taken back to the drawing board. The DWCD and the town of Rico are wrestling with the complex problem of historical-use water rights in the Dolores River basin.

That’s because Rico’s water-diversion rights, which are relied upon by 280 or so residents and a handful of businesses, are legally junior to those held by the DWCD. That’s bad for Rico because it puts the district in the unfortunate position of potentially putting a call on that water in order to fulfill its water-user obligations during a prolonged drought, leaving the town’s residents without legal access to water.

But a tentative plan to let Rico purchase enough senior rights annually from the district for current resident water-users, in exchange for automatically signing up all future development onto the district’s taxing rolls has met resistance. The idea is to grandfather in historical consumptive use so that year-round water can be depended on even during dry years.

Those opposed say it is unfair to force new development to start paying the 5.1-mill water tax without a vote, and some long-time residents argue that their historical use essentially trumps Colorado water law. Critics also wonder why Rico-ites that develop land in the future should have to pay a mill-levy tax used to help pay back the costs of the Dolores Project, which doesn’t directly benefit them.

"It becomes a philosophical issue," said DWCD director Bill Smith. "Some of those upstream families have used the water for a very long time, so it is hard for people to understand. We’re breaking new ground here."

Allen said, "Intellectually they understand (that the district’s right is senior). But to some people, it just doesn’t matter."

Forming a water district in Rico could be feasible, Allen said, especially if the area’s largest landowner — Rico Renaissance Corporation — begins to develop, thereby spreading out costs and lowering the price of water for everyone.

Schwindt pointed out that the district has been fair to upstream users with rights junior to those owned by the DWCD, in that those junior users can continue to pull water under current contracts. Rico draws municipal water from Silver Creek, a smallish tributary of the Dolores River.

Rather than go to court over the matter, both sides appear willing to continue negotiations for a practical solution. Bringing it to the state water courts would only cause further divisions, the board agreed.

So do Rico representatives.

"We would be remiss to not look more at this now; otherwise it could become a crisis," Allen said.

"The town perception is that we are not a like a factory or farm that might get its water cut off, but a town of people with kids," said Rico town-board member Kathryn Allen.