LETTER: Councilor won't 'back off' IGA opposition

Editor:

A good healthy debate on the proposed Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with regard to water between Star Valley and Payson is important and should be encouraged. But when a Council Person suggests I should “back off” or when the Town Manager and Mayor tell the press they are worried I may “flood the council meeting with rhetoric against the IGA,” it is clear there is no intention of having a healthy debate.

It is always dangerous when minds are made up without knowing the facts. In the past, I have saved Star Valley hundreds of thousands of dollars
by not “backing off” and refusing to be intimidated. The proposed IGA will be no exception.

The focus seems to be more on “getting along” than what the IGA will accomplish. Getting along should be the reward for making fair and sensible decisions and not the primary goal to be achieved at any cost. I think at some point we must look beyond the political posturing and examine the actual facts. In this process, there seems to one hurdle that
everyone ignores. What will be the actual cost to Star Valley to become a water purveyor and receive an allotment of C.C. Cragin water?

Since no one on the Council or Water Department had addressed this part of the issue, I thought it important that I do so. This is what I found out. We all know it would cost Star Valley $100,000 for the three wells described in the proposed IGA Purchase Agreement. The part we weren’t aware of was the additional costs imposed by SRP and Payson for capital costs and operational/maintenance costs to construct and operate the pipeline and facilities.

Here are some of the known costs: If Star valley were to receive 300 acre-feet per year from the reservoir, our share of the capital costs to SRP would be $600,000. Five hundred acre-feet per year would cost $1,000,000. Star Valley would pay Payson $790,000 for incurred costs for the water treatment plant. There would also be substantial annual operation and maintenance costs.

These enormous costs would force Star Valley to acquire Brooke Utilities at a cost of $2,000,000 to create a large enough customer base to recover at least some of the costs .

Then we would have the matter of how to get the water from Payson's treatment plant to Star Valley. It has been assumed the Tower Well pipeline would be used for that purpose.

The problem with that premise is Payson would need 24/7 access to their pipeline to fulfill their safe yield commitment of 2,520 acre-feet per year. Since Star Valley has no way of storing water, we would also need continuous use of a pipeline. This would require constructing a separate pipeline for transporting water from the Payson treatment plant to Star Valley at a cost of a $1 million per mile.

It is also appropriate to weigh the “need” for C.C. Cragin water against these costs. The Clear Creek Associates Report from 2007 claimed 4,300 acre-feet per year as available safe yield in the Star Valley watershed. Output from all wells in the Star Valley watershed total about 2,000 acre-feet per year.

Consuming only one half the available groundwater would not merit spending millions to acquire additional water from C.C. Cragin.
The only way I would even consider asking for a share of C.C. Cragin water is if it were possible to somehow trade Star Valley’s allocation for a like amount of Tower Well water.

Just maybe it's not such a bad idea that I don't “back off”.
Gary Coon
Star Valley Town Councilor