LETTER: Beginning to smell like water conspiracy

Editor:
Is there a WATER conspiracy in Star Valley? You be the judge.

Let’s take a look at what has happened over the course of the last year. In May of 2009, Payson began to run the Tower well 8 to 10 hours a day for approximately 120 days straight. This is far more than ever before!

This was uncovered late in August by the report released from LFR. Their report cautioned Star Valley of the accelerated pumping practice by The Town of Payson on the Tower Well and its negative affect on neighboring wells. You would think that this report from our water experts would promote some sort of action from Star Valley’s Water and Sewer Commission.

Actually the action taken has left me in disbelief. Since August of 2009 the Chairman ( Vern Leis ) of the commission has done everything he can to destroy the relationship our town had with LFR and the credibility of the report’s they have released. He has actually proposed that our town stop doing business with LFR and start doing business with a local firm that has a major conflict of interest due to its relationship with the Town of Payson. He has even gone as far as to slander LFR and make public statements regarding them that are false.

One would think that after observing the heaviest pumping of the tower well in its history that those responsible for our monitoring program would want to step up the monitoring to be sure that the affected wells were recovering. But what they did is nothing! In fact they did not download any data from the monitoring program until mid December and that data has not been reviewed.

LFR has been our town’s hydrology firm since before we incorporated and has more knowledge pertaining to our water situation than any other firm in the state. They were there working side by side with us when we set up our monitoring program and they are the ones that completed our town's sustainable yield study. All of their reports are generated from actual data received from our towns monitoring program. It is precise, professional and easy to understand.

In September of 2009, (Star Valley Mayor) Bill Rappaport was quoted in the paper saying that he was naive to think that the tower well could affect any of our wells in Star Valley. There is absolutely no data to back up that statement and plenty of data proving the effects of the Tower Well on neighboring wells.

This year Rappaport announced a water agreement between Payson and Star Valley and how this could not have happened two years ago. That’s because unlike now, two years ago we had people in Star Valley trying to protect our water and those with knowledge of this subject ( like LFR ) would be able to look at the body of this new agreement to see that it was purely political and one sided for the benefit of Payson.

So now that we had one of the wettest winters on record we get to look at STAGE 1 Water restrictions being posted around Star Valley by Payson Water Co. ( AKA Brook Utilities). This restriction is not a result of the monitoring program showing our wells being low on water. It is Payson Water Co. wanting Star Valley residents to conserve water in Star Valley so that the Town of Payson can pump our conserved water out from under our town and sell it to Payson Water Co. for Mesa del Caballo. Are you beginning to smell something?

Chris Benjamin
Star Valley