What’s a water conservancy district?

CA$H Water District

Water is life. We search for it on distant planets. We ought to cherish it, and our policy ought to reflect the value we place upon it. Yet, here in Cache Valley, there are some who wish to open the door to develop and sell our vital water supplies. Although not much is known about how the Cash Water District will actually operate, we do know that for the first two years a mysteriously appointed board of overseers will have two years to do whatever they see fit. Under this current proposal, this group of unelected officials will actually have the power to write the rules which govern themselves, and we would be forced to blindly trust in their ability to make huge decisions that may affect generations to come. The main objective of a water district is to facilitate a region’s master water plan. Can we really trust the plan that lies before us?

First question: what will this cost taxpayers? Allegedly, about $20-35 a year, which will total over $1,000,000 each year in revenue. Not only will a new tax be placed on residents, but an additional layer of government will be created. These water bureaucrats will have no more authority than our currently elected Cache County officials. I understand the need for responsible government on key issues like this, but blind obedience will not do.

Next question: How might this district affect the Great Salt Lake? Since 65% of the water going into the lake comes from the Bear River, any development the Cash Water District’s unelected officials might approve could significantly lower water levels. You know, I don’t want to sound like an alarmist here, but in some worst case scenarios put forth by Utah’s own scientific community, it is projected that if the Great Salt Lake were to dry up (without its own ecological water right,) the resulting air pollution caused by the dust bowl left behind would become so severe, that our state’s capital would become vacant. Need an example of this happening? Lookup Owens Lake, California. Seriously, folks. We need to be foresightful about these things, and I am not seeing such wisdom in the current proposal.

Finally, and most importantly, far too many citizens are still confused about where they stand on this vital issue. Why? Perhaps it is because the Cash Water District, since its inception,has been shrouded in mystery by those who seek to profit from its creation, such as developers and business interests? If there is one thing that is clear about this proposal, it’s that not enough public discussion or input has been sought after or acknowledged.

I urge Cache County Voters to reject the Cash Water District proposal in its current form. Citizens should not vote for the unknown and unfamiliar, and should never have to accept the appointment of unelected “water tsars.” Cache Valley has a long history of successful water management, and residents should be more involved in the development of water policies that will have a tremendous impact upon all of our futures.

Despite all that I have said, I do see the merit in managing our water resources. Therefore, I have hope that over the next two years, this ballot initiative will be thought out more thoroughly. There must be more public feedback and dialogue with a wider range of water specialists and community leaders involved. The water management board should be democratically elected, and be regulated by immutable laws of conduct. Lastly, as someone who truly appreciates our natural resources, I hope there will be clearly outlined steps towards the conservation and environmental stewardship of our communal water sources.

If a water district should ever come to exist, we deserve a better plan than the one currently proposed. We need a plan that presents a more transparent and defined vision of our community’s future.

— Darren Bingham is a senior studying marketing sustainability and environmental stewardship in the College of Natural Resources. He is an avid nature lover and is looking forward to this election cycle being over.

Consider the Cache Water District

In public policy, an “issue” is something about which people disagree. The key issue regarding the proposed Cache Water District (CWD) is whether we have moved past fear as a driver for our water policy and now embrace the need for a locally funded expert panel to figure out how best to manage our water resources.

Voting “no” based on a simple desire to minimize taxes or government is a cop-out. Taxes buy us civilization. Government isn’t an evil impediment; it’s just a mechanism whereby we organize and work together toward the common good.

Water is complicated and few people are interested in investing time to understand its complexities. Some opponents fear that the CWD is only a ruse to develop the Bear River. But it is highly unlikely that another dam will be built on the Bear River. There isn’t sufficient water in the Bear River to be impounded, if there ever was. The Division of Water Resources is finally realizing that their flow projections, crafted in 1990 after some of Utah’s wettest years, are perhaps 26% higher than long term averages. The difference wipes out the potential storage for a Bear River project. Moreover, the costs of impounding and diverting the Bear River would be outrageous; even the “preferred” alternative in the recent Bear River Pipeline Concept report estimates costs at $1.8 billion, or almost $8,200 per acre foot of storage. And remember, the federal government isn’t subsidizing these projects anymore. Further, the impacts of removing that water from the Bear River and the Great Salt Lake would be so severe, from increased dust bearing toxic metals and faster snowpack melting to loss of extraction industries and hemispheric hits on migrating waterfowl, that the public outcry would drown out the voices of development. Finally, the lawsuits related to the public trust doctrine, wetland protections, and air quality would embroil the state for decades.

Contrarians cloud the issues with their own fears; fears of not just Bear River development, but backroom politics, nefarious schemes to steal water from other districts, conspiracies to waste water in a headlong dash to…well, something. They claim that since the County hired an engineering consulting firm to help develop a master plan, then they are intent on building dams because, well, because that’s what engineering consulting firms do. Balderdash! The critics should know better.
The truth is that the proponents have come a long way from alleged Neanderthal-esque attitudes of decades past. The top five objectives of the initial five year plan emphasize conservation, aquifer storage, environmental studies, and water rights banking. If you had attended the meetings and listened, as none of the contrarians did, you’d have heard the proponents concerns that protecting the environment is important. Understanding environmental needs and impacts is not an easy task. It takes a dedicated stream of funding.

And that’s exactly why a CWD is a good idea. It will be an elected body, subject to citizen review. And it can have the interest, the expertise, and the guaranteed funding, unreliant on the vagaries of county budgeting, become our “go to” expert on surface and groundwater flows, develop reliable estimates for water use, promote conservation, bank water rights no longer used by agricultural lands when converted to housing, secure in-stream flows, advocate for more sensible water laws that provide for environmental protections in the watershed and a conservation pool for the Great Salt Lake, and stand toe-to-toe with the other water conservancy districts to develop Bear River water plans that embrace the big picture and the long term future. A CWD could help to pipe water from areas of surplus to areas of need within the county. It could be a local source of knowledge, perspective, and foresight to ensure that our water is managed for future generations as well as wild creatures, and to help us respond to the changes of global weirding that even now accompany global climate change. It’s not a question of whether there is some other possible way to achieve one of these things, but whether there’s a better way to achieve them all.
Every new policy has risks. But we have the opportunity to create a new and competent entity with its own source of funding that really cares about water in a comprehensive way. It takes faith and a belief that we have evolved beyond the 19th century attitudes of survival against nature and learned to work within nature’s constraints. Will we have that courage?

— Bryan Dixon was president of Bridgerland Audubon Society in the late 1990s and fought earlier attempts at a local water conservancy district. He participated in numerous county wide planning efforts, including the county’s first economic development plan, Cache Vision 2020 and Envision Cache Valley, the Bear River Cutler Reservoir Total Maximum Daily Load Citizens Advisory Committee, and the 2013 Cache Water Master Plan. He organized public meetings to discuss the Amalga Barrens Dam proposal in 1997 and 1999, which helped to remove that site from future consideration. And most important, he observed firsthand the Bridgerland Water Conservancy Group in spring 2016 as they developed the bylaws and purpose statements for the Cache Water District. He is an environmentalist with a master’s degree in planning and completed a thesis on groundwater protection policy.