We're not even close to who they say we are

COMMENTARY

If you read the Tuesday, March 8 edition of the Payson Roundup, you probably have a great misconception about where the people of Mesa del Caballo are coming from regarding the Blue Ridge/C.C. Cragin water treatment plant that everyone – including both Payson and Mesa del Caballo – wants built near our community.

In a front page story and accompanying editorial, the Roundup primarily quoted those Mesa del residents with oppositional views and printed a number of inaccuracies that portray us as ingrates who “want the water – but not your water treatment plant.”

Not true folks. Not even close to true.

The majority of the residents of Mesa del Caballo merely want an explanation for the sudden appearance of a new site location adjacent to our community, a location that wasn’t mentioned at a public scoping meeting, a site that has not been part of any public discussion. If you lived in a community surrounded by the national forest and this happened to you, I would venture you would have questions as well. Especially when all parties, including the Town of Payson, agree that a site across Houston Mesa Road is preferable.

We’re just asking why the adjacent site is suddenly being called the preferred site and what a water treatment plant on that site will mean to our community in terms of noise, light pollution, obstruction of views, forest access, and a decrease in our property values? We fully understand how important Blue Ridge/C.C Cragin water is to the Rim Country, and particularly to us.

WE WANT THE WATER TREATMENT PLANT LOCATED NEAR OUR COMMUNITY. And, when all questions are answered and alternatives ruled out, the majority of us will probably accept whatever the Forest Service decides, even if it’s the adjacent site.

So far our meetings with the Town of Payson have been civil and frank. We have listened and we have expressed our appreciation for the town’s efforts and explanations. We understand how the Forest Service works. After all, we live on an island surrounded by their quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Now, please allow us to clear up a couple of major inaccuracies in the Roundup stories. First, the water trucked to Mesa del Caballo does not come from Rye or Star Valley, although it once did. It is now sold to us by the Town of Payson and comes from a fire hydrant near The Home Depot.

And water from Blue Ridge/C.C. Cragin will not be cheap for Mesa del residents, certainly not “cheaper than Mesa del Caballo residents can pump it out of the ground.”

Had the Roundup sent a reporter to the meeting between Payson officials and Mesa del residents held last Friday at the site of the water treatment plant, he would have heard many more voices of reason and compromise than those critical of the plant. In fact, Mesa del resident Noble Collins told Payson Mayor Kenny Evans at that meeting that 90 percent of the issue between us was caused by simple miscommunication.

The reporter would have also heard Mesa del Water Committee member Randy Norman tell the community the reality of hooking up to the pipeline and the process by which Mesa del residents will decide their future:

"Our water provider - Brooke Utilities - has to sign agreements with the Town of Payson and with SRP. We have met with the Town of Payson and (Payson water guru) Buzz (Walker) has given us the contract information. We met with SRP and we have contract information.

"The community is going to decide this in a series of meetings this spring, and it's going to be a dollars and cents (issue).

"No matter what is said from anywhere, this is not going to be a free, inexpensive alternative. It's going to be a sure alternative. It's going to be one of the alternatives. There's a cost to all of these alternatives, whether it's deep wells, C.C. Cragin or whatever."

We certainly realize that the people who speak the loudest on an issue make for the best story. But as members of the board of the Mesa del Caballo Community Center/El Caballo Club, representing some 80 Mesa del households, we also know that the vast majority of people in Mesa del Caballo are reasonable, rational human beings who desire nothing more than to work with the Town of Payson and Brooke Utilities to secure the best possible source of water for our community.

To say “we want the water – but not your water treatment plant” is both unfair and inaccurate.

Board of Directors
El Caballo Club/Mesa del Caballo Community Center