After listening to Jennifer on KSUB this morning I thought you might like to know that having a private well doesn't matter to the "Water Board" folk's.At Our previous home (Las Vegas) the "Board" lobbied for a pipeline from Lake Mead to the Vegas Valley. Once the pipeline was completed the water was pumped into the aquifer for storage. The pumping stirred up the underground water so much the cost of filtration was $200.00 per Mo. not counting the water.The logical conclusion of this is testing would render your wells "unsafe".A property owner would still have Water Right to donate to the District because the water it self would be unusable.

Regarding Water board plans smaller tax hike 8-04-2006, quoting general manager Scott Wilson “this will send a positive message to the public that board members heard resident’s comments, but keeping $500,000 for the Lake Powell Pipeline will show the state that Iron County wants to be involved.”

Several hundred irate citizens attended this meeting, about half spoke.

Almost universally they blasted this pipeline as unwanted and unneeded. They commented on the boards’ arrogance and how out of touch with the citizens of Iron County they were.

Many expressed the opinion that no matter what was said, the board had made up its’ mind on the pipeline.

Of the approximately 100 people who spoke, I heard not one defend the pipeline.

Scott Wilson has indeed sent a message to the public.

“We know better than you, we are smarter than you, and we will build this pipeline no matter what the taxpayers say.”

This board is appointed by the County Commissioners. One of them will be replaced this coming November, what do the candidates have to say about this pipeline and the members of this board?

Scott Wilson is perhaps the most pompous person I ever met. The trouble is that he is typical of the water board zealots who are determined to push ahead, no matter what. Admiral Dewey made "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" almost a motto, but there is no war here unless the water board wants one. If you get enough people irritated, they will revolt. At least I hope so.

I can't recommend highly enough that all of us dealing with these issues in our various ways read Donald Worster's underappreciated book, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West.

While water conservancy districts have performed an arguably important public service in the past century, it may well be that these relics of a previous era of "empire building" have outlived their usefullness...or at least their perceived utility.

At the very least, if you're thinking that these debates are only about water, growth, and providing for the common good, it's likely you haven't seen the movie Chinatown.

The stakes are getting higher, aren't they? But what's really at stake? Is it really only "water"? (And I don't mean anything so tawdry as a "conspiracy theory." No, we only need be willing to ask honest, if tough questions of the "status quo.")

There are lots of cockamamey pipeline schemes out there, in many western areas, including that chimera we're refering to as the Lake Powell Pipeline.

Anyone read "Frankenstein" lately?

It used to be that it took actual water to make things grow. What's really going on behind those Oz-world curtains of our conservancy districts? Now merely the idea of "more water" is directly (but not solely) helping fuel such incredible growth.

Are pipelines and the metastisis of urban sprawl the best we can imagine for ourselves? For our descendants? What other reasonable and hopeful futures might we at least begin to imagine for our descendants?

Worster, in his book on water and growth in the American West, claims that "Democracy cannot survive where technical expertise, accumulated capital, or their combination is allowed to take command."

Many of us seem to have been taking the pulse of our democracy lately.

What's the status?

If you live in Iron County and haven't heard about the recent 1300% water district / property tax hike and the surrounding uproar, you are probably living under a rock, and not in Iron County.

It goes something like this: Last year, the water conservancy district charged a .000094 tax rate. So on a $200,000 property with a 45-percent exclusion, taxpayers paid $10.34 to the district.

After Senate Bill 111 passed in March, the water district can charge a rate of .001. So on the same $200,000 property, homeowners will pay $110. By the way, Sen. Tom Hatch sponsored the bill and it passed 26 /3 - the 3 representatives not present on voting day include Southern Utah Sens. Hatch and Hickman. (I thought that was an interesting sidebar, just a little food for thought.)

So regarding this 1300% tax increase - the community is outraged, as well it should be. Many Iron County residents say this is called "taxation without representation" and many are wondering why a water board, appointed by our county commissioners, has the authority to tax residents in the first place?

An Interesting Twist

In the midst of all the hullabaloo, my Republican opponent, Dennis Stowell, has told people that if elected to the Utah Senate, he will reign in the water board, and make certain that citizens don't get these crazy tax hikes.

I think that's a great campaign promise. People will probably listen to him and they will probably like that. Gosh, I would like to say the same thing... so I'll say it now "if elected to the Utah Senate, I promise to reign in the water board and make sure that you, Joe Taxpayer, don't have to be subjected to crazy tax hikes."

However, as great of a campaign promise that it is, I am still wondering where Dennis Stowell was when the tax hike came down in the first place?

From my research, the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District has been talking about a huge tax levy since its budget hearing in December 2005. Where was the commissioners' outrage then? You would think that at least a County Commissioner should have known what was coming down the pike. And as outraged as he said he is, he should have been yelling his head off about it. Instead, he gives the impression that he was just as shocked as everyone else... even IF it was his buddy Tom Hatch who wrote the bill that allowed for the tax increase in the first place. He really didn't know this was going to happen? I have a hard time believing that.

I'm not a water expert and I don't have all of the information YET about how this all works. However, it seems to me an idle campaign promise to say that you can't "reign in the water district" until you're the senator...why don't you have this power already when you are a part of the commission that appoints the members to the board? And so, while it is frustrating that the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District can impose taxes on Iron County residents without our input, it is even more difficult to understand why the County Commissioners didn't do something about it when it first hit the fan.

There will be a lot of opinions on this subject in the coming weeks and I promise I will be watching this issue like a hawk. I also would like to hear someone's opinion on why the County Commissioners AND the Water District didn't think it was necessary to do a better job in preparing us for this huge blow.

While I was sitting in the originally scheduled room for last weeks meeting, I struck up a conversation with a couple sitting next to me. While I'm a relative newcomer to the area, they were long time residents who either knew or at least knew about the holdings and activities of many of the members of the water board. The wife ticked off several of their names, along with the way in which they would personally benefit from the building of the pipeline - by selling their water rights or their land to developers, in most cases.

I hope some of these long-time residents who are concerned about the effect unlimited growth would have on our quality of life and who have knowledge about the board will share it here, or at least come to the meeting next week prepared to speak about conflicts of interest on the part of the board. Conflict is, of course, not entirely unexpected when drawing from such a small population; nonetheless, disclosure of it should be seen as an important component of the debate.

To be honest, the amount of THIS increase isn't particularly troubling to me; I know infrastructure improvements are necessary, if only to properly utilize the water that is here already. Clearly southern Utah has done little to use water efficiently. But the Lake Powell Pipedream is not going to be paid for with only a couple hundred bucks a year - it will cost every family in Iron County at least a thousand dollars per year for the next thirty years, and that's ONLY if it comes in on budget. Let it turn into the Big Dig West, and it costs two and a half billion and takes 30 years, not 15, at a cost of three thousand per household per year. That's a strain on almost any budget, and a backbreaker for many.

As you said, Jennifer, growth should pay for itself. But with all the outcry over the rise in housing costs in the past couple of years, we know that there won't be any significant increase in permit fees for new home construction. As for business - well, if you want to build any kind of manufacturing plant, Cedar will pretty much give you land, build your building and waive taxes for 5 years. Can't see the city too interested in suddenly switching to collecting fees on new commercial ventures.

Which means, ours are the only pockets left to pick.