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Commitment needed for water system

Water project at critical point, leaders say
La Plata West Water Authority will hold public meetings this month to field questions and promote participation in it’s plan to provide potable water to the southwest corner of La Plata County. “We’re at the point that we need solid community support to continue,” said Roy Horvath, chairman of the water authority.

If residents of the water-shy southwest corner of La Plata County are ever to have a potable water system, they have to help finance it – and fairly soon.

Roy Horvath and Mardi Gebhardt, chairman and treasurer, respectively, of the La Plata West Water Authority laid out the situation Monday in an interview.

The LPWWA has water available through the Animas-La Plata Project, a settlement of Native American water-right claims. The LPWWA is among nontribal entities that have a small share of the water stored in Lake Nighthorse.

One hundred residents have paid a $500 commitment fee, but nothing toward the tap fee of $9,250. Those residents, plus 100 more, must come through with full payment by the end of the year in order to get the project started.

Their $1.9 million is needed to persuade the U.S. Department of Agriculture to loan an equal amount from its rural development fund, Horvath said.

The USDA doesn’t loan much beyond current needs, Horvath said.

Four public meetings are scheduled this month to field questions and promote participation in the project, the objective when the LPWWA was formed in 2007.

“We’re at the point that we need solid community support to continue,” Horvath said. “We need community buy-in to get the first phase started.”

Construction is scheduled to start in April 2017.

The first phase consists of about 300 parcels bounded roughly on the north by the border of old Fort Lewis College, on the south by County Road 130, on the east by County Road 136 and on the west by the La Plata Highway (Colorado Highway 140).

The total cost of Phase 1 design and construction is $3.85 million.

Horvath said the LPWWA, in the eyes of financial sources, is a risk because it has no income of its own and nothing tangible on the ground.

On the other hand, the State Revolving Fund – federal money managed through three state agencies – won’t make loans because the LPWWA target area is too affluent, Horvath said.

So showing its commitment and ability to carry off the project financially is essential to the LPWWA, he said.

“We don’t want to go the way of the Upper La Plata Water Users Association in New Mexico,” Horvath said.

That association has had to install three pipelines over the years to serve customers between Farmington and the Colorado line because it lacked sufficient funding initially to avoid piecemeal development, Horvath said.

In coming weeks, the LPWWA will contact Phase 1 residents to ask them to allow water distribution lines to cross their property, Gebhardt said.

At the same time, Gebhardt said, the agency will begin to survey the area for cultural or environmental features that would pose a challenge.

Wetlands, Native American burial sites, a 100-year-old corral or a railroad right-of-way would have to be avoided or a mitigation measure would have to be found, Gebhardt said.

If LPWWA can get Phase 1 going, it should provide impetus for enlarging the distribution area, Horvath said. Residents would see tangible progress and be more willing to buy in, and currently hesitant lenders and new sources of funding could become available, he said.

“So it’s important to get aboard if you’re going to,” he said.

daler@durangoherald.com



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