Why Star Valley should turn down Payson's wells

Councilor fights lonely battle to protect town

By Jim Keyworth
Gazette Blog Editor

If you think all is peace and harmony out in Star Valley because the local newspaper told you so, if you think it’s all about working hand-in-hand with the Town of Payson and all is forgiven over past misdeeds, think again.

Star Valley Councilor Gary Coon, often the lone voice of reason on the SV council, tells a different tale, and his side of the story gets only passing mention in a recent Roundup editorial.

In fact, it’s the same issue that Coon got the council to run away and hide from a year ago – a proposed IGA (intergovernmental agreement) with the Town of Payson that would sell SV three wells inside its own town limits for what the Roundup calls the “bargain basement” price of $100,000.

Only problem is, the wells aren’t all that good and the best two of the three are landlocked by two pretty stubborn customers – the U.S. Forest Service and SV resident Chris Benjamin (who, you will recall, was one of the first SV citizens to raise an alarm when Payson initially made its water grab five years ago).

Coon told the council the wells were a bad deal a year ago, and the IGA slithered away and hid like a scorpion under a rock.  But last month, it reared its ugly head again, much to Coon’s surprise:

“This started a year ago when Payson had that IGA they were so nice to offer us,” Coon said with just a hint of sarcasm. “All kinds of bad things in it as we recall.

“They brought it up again. When I saw my agenda I looked up at the date. I thought I had the wrong agenda. This thing had been buried a long time ago.”

Benjamin, who narrowly lost a bid for a council seat, was also incredulous:

“This was all put to rest about a year ago,” he said. “It was brought up as part of an IGA and they threw the whole thing out because the whole thing was bad. And then all of a sudden it just pops up a year later.”

The impetus: SV officials claim The Knolls subdivision off Arizona 260 recently ran out of water for two days, and purchasing the three wells from Payson would provide a backup. But at least one resident of The Knolls said she never ran out of water. Coon, who also lives in The Knolls, explained:

“What happened six or eight months ago, one of our storage tanks got low on water. The pump that supplied it went down or something so the water level went down. It was not because of a shortage of water.  It was because of a mechanical malfunction.

“I suppose depending on where you were and the gravity feed, you didn’t get any water for a couple days. I don’t think that involved very many people. The story got blown out of proportion. Mayor (Bill) Rappaport (who also lives in The Knolls) made the point that if we had those wells, we could have trucked water to these people. I said, ‘Bill you can’t truck it from one CC&N (Certificate of Convenience and Necessity) property to another CC&N property any more than you can pipe it,’ so it kind of knocked that argument down. 

Coon said the rest of the council was ready to OK the purchase of the three wells from Payson.

“I went to the meeting and the six of them were ready to go,” he recalled. “Boy, they had that on the agenda. They were going to go down and buy those wells and that would be the end of that.
“I said, ‘Well, I don’t think that we should do that for the same reason that I didn’t agree with it a year ago. We can’t get the water out of there.’

“(Councilor) Vern Leis, who also lives in The Knolls, said he thought he had an idea how to get it out through the forest. I said, ‘Vern that won’t happen.’

“That’s how the Tower Well began in the first place, when they put those wells in and they couldn’t get out through the forest because the Forest Service said no. So they wanted to go out the front and that got into a lawsuit with Benjamin, and so basically (Payson water guru) Buzz Walker said if you don’t let us use those wells we’ll put a well right in the middle of your damn town.

“That’s a direct quote. I think it was your article – that’s how far back we’re talking here – back when you were working for the Roundup.

“So Vern went into his little spiel about why we should buy those wells. I listened and heard him out and he said the two wells were equivalent to the Tower Well in gallons per minute.

“I said, ‘Where did you get that?’ He said, well that’s what they told him at Payson. That’s when they did their test on it.

“I said, ‘I went into Arizona Wells’ – any well driller has to submit that information to the state and anybody has access to it. So I did that beforehand and those two wells, the TW1 and TW2 (the two wells out behind Benjamin) are not equivalent to the Tower Well.”

Coon explained that TW1 and TW2 are both rated at 150 gallons per minute (gpm). (The third well Payson wants to sell Star Valley, located off Chaparral Pines Drive, is only rated at 35 gpm.)

“That’s what was submitted by Chris Miller when he dug those wells. So I told Vern, ‘That’s false information. Don’t be saying those two wells are equivalent to the Tower Well (which Payson claims is capable of producing 855 gpm) because you’re trying to sell this on false information.’ So he kind of backed off on that.

“I said, ‘You can’t get the water out of there. There’s no way. You can’t go out the back. The Forest Service said no to Payson; they’re going to say no to us. You can’t go out the front unless we take Benjamin to court,’ and I said, ‘If you do that you will divide this town.’ I said, ‘Benjamin has just as many friends as anybody on this council and if you want to throw some dynamite in the middle of this town that’s a good way of doing it. We’ll all get recalled. It would really cause a mess.’ I said, ‘If you do the eminent domain thing we probably would win; there’s an emergency here; we have to have the wells. You know how that goes, the government usually wins out on that.

“‘But to win you’re going to lose. And even if you win it’s going to cost you a lot of money, a lot of time, and it’s really going to cause some problems here.

“‘And if you win, what are you going to do with the water? Brooke (Utilities) has the CC&N for the whole area so you can’t go anywhere with the water. So why go there? Why buy these wells? We do have a well dedicated from the Benjamins to the town for the purpose of hooking up the hydrants which we can do without getting into the CC&N issue. That’s a 50 gpm well. It’s a good well. Just pull alongside of it, fill it up, and you got water for hydrants.’”

“What I basically did, I guess, was just knock down all their arguments to the point where they didn’t dare go to Payson and say we’ll buy the wells.

“The agenda item was to go to Payson and buy the wells. They didn’t want to table it, so they tabled it another way. They made a motion to give (Town Manager/Town Attorney) Tim Grier permission to go back and continue negotiating and then come back to the council and then we will make a decision. So it stalled it off, and that’s the same thing as tabling it.

“I voted it against that. There’s no reason to negotiate. There’s no reason to purchase those wells. I don’t care if they sell them for 50 cents. What good are they?”

So why didn't the Roundup tell you this side of the story in its editorial. It did mention Coon’s objections in passing, but dismissed them because they “missed the point.” Coon thinks it’s because the paper really wants to push what it calls a “remarkable partnership” between the two towns:

“On the Roundup editorial page, on the lefthand side, and I think that’s (Reporter Pete) Aleshire – it’s his kind of writing – they get pretty outspoken and they commented on that,” he explained. “If you read it, what they’re focusing on is this idea that Payson and Star Valley are working together and we get along and all this rah rah (stuff).

Coon has no problem with getting along – but only if it’s in Star Valley’s best interest.

“Really, my contention is, it’s great to get along, but that shouldn’t be the main objective,” he said. “The main objective should be to do the right thing for your town and if that means getting along, great. But don’t just say we have to get along and then we do whatever we have to to hit that end. You can’t go that route. You just have to do what’s right.

“I’m not against everything that Payson wants to do with us. If they want to do something that I feel is the right thing, then (I’m for it). If it’s the wrong thing, I’m not going to hesitate to say no. And if it means that we’re not getting along, then I guess that’s the way it happens.”