Star Valley council agrees to 'conciliation' agreement with Payson over water issues

By Matt Brabb
Gazette Correspondent
The Star Valley town council offered an olive branch to the town of Payson on Tuesday night, unanimously passing a resolution that calls for conciliation between the two towns following years of acrimonious feuding over Payson’s ability to take water from beneath Star Valley via the Tower Well.

The measure directs the Star Valley town staff to enter negotiations with Payson to complete an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) in the hope of achieving four goals. The Payson town council will consider the measure during a meeting scheduled on Feb 4.

Among the goals Star Valley hopes to negotiate with Payson by means of the IGA is a provision to provide an emergency back up water supply to Star Valley utilizing existing Payson infrastructure.

A second, perhaps more critical objective of the motion is to develop an agreement between Payson and Star Valley which will mutually and respectively limit withdrawals from the Star Valley aquifer not to exceed agreed upon yields spelled out in the IGA. That goal is a thinly veiled reference to the Tower Well, which is at the heart of the tension between the towns, and was the motivating force for the incorporation of Star Valley.

Determining that number could well be the deciding factor in whether or not an agreement can be reached between the two towns. Presently the town of Payson is legally entitled to more than 800 acre-feet of water a year from Star Valley’s watershed by means of the Tower Well. Those 800 acre-feet are approximately one third of Payson’s current “safe yield”, a measure of how much Payson can safely pump with the expectation that it will be replaced by natural means in a given year.

Star Valley Mayor Bill Rappaport called the resolution “a monumental document,” noting, “Two years ago this never would have happened.”

He labeled the resolution “an agreement to agree,” and went on to say that he hopes the measure will eventually lead to the creation of a municipal water works for Star Valley that will qualify the town for water from the CC Cragin (formerly Blue Ridge) reservoir. Water from that source is expected to be available by 2016, and 500 acre feet per year have been set aside for use by Rim Country communities other than Payson.

Star Valley town attorney Timothy Grier noted that the resolution as passed “doesn’t have any sort of legal ramifications.” He went on to say that the measure simply “opens the door for communication and changes the spirit of the conflict.”

Councilor Vern Leis, who also serves as the town’s water and sewer commisioner, crafted the resolution and has been in communication with members of Payson’s water department for several months attempting to settle differences between the two towns. He explained that the measure did not call for any specific financial commitments from the town at this time. He also made clear that it would be possible to get Cragin water through the same pipeline that Payson uses to deliver water extracted from the Tower Well, if the towns can come to an agreement.

Though the measure was eventually passed unanimously with a few modifications, there was a healthy debate during the deliberations, and two of the council members expressed some doubts.

Councilor George Binney, while calling the resolution a “great idea”, had reservations about some of the assertions made in the document. He took exception in one instance to the claim that the town of Payson was only accessing a “deep aquifer” in Star Valley, and in a second instance to the statement that Payson had substantial, additional groundwater resources which exceed Payson estimates for both maximum short-term and long-term sustainable usage.

“I don’t want to support the idea that Payson has a 100 year supply if that is what this is saying,” he commented.

Councilor Gary Coon also expressed some reservations before eventually voting for the measure.

“It brings up a heck of a lot more questions than answers,” he said.

Noting that while the resolution contained good news for Star Valley, he warned that “in negotiations, the other side wants something,” and that “they’re going to want something besides just being buddies.”

Chris Benjamin, who is running for a seat on the Star Valley council pointed out that in the past, Payson has refused to pin down a number it considers could be termed “harmful” to the Star Valley aquifer.

“They refuse to define harm,” he claimed.

Still, the mood at town hall was generally upbeat after the vote was taken, and most in attendance seemed excited that at long last there may be a chance of working through some of the differences between the two towns by taking this first step to re-open the lines of communication.