UPDATE: Douglas County Commissioner Laydon still coming to meet March 26
DOUGLAS County Commissioner Abe Laydon said he’s still coming to the San Luis Valley to meet with elected officials and residents as planned on March 26, and he’s hoping that “authentic engagement can still occur.”
The Douglas County commissioners on Tuesday canceled their scheduled “live town hall” after Laydon and Commissioner George Teal expressed disappointment and concern that it was being turned into a “circus” and “protest” event.
“Suffice it to say, no one staged a protest when members of the Valley came to Douglas County. In fact valley stakeholders were welcomed and listened to openly. It’s disappointing that that same courtesy was not extended to our visit.
“Regardless, I made it clear today I am still coming, even if the town hall is restructured.”
Douglas County Commissioner Lora Thomas is not planning to visit. She said she’s heard enough from water experts and opposition from Valley farmers and doesn’t support the proposal by Renewable Water Resources to export water from the San Luis Valley to Douglas County.
Douglas County Commissioner George Teal said he wants to visit the proposed wellfield that Renewable Water Resources has identified on the northern end of Valley and near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and neighboring Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Teal likened supporters of Renewable Water Resources to the fighters of democracy in Ukraine.
“They feel like, quite frankly I think it’s appropriate, we were just talking about Russia and Ukraine, because they feel like they are being silenced, they feel like they are being intimidated, and if they were to express their actual opinions, they would have consequences.”
Teal and Laydon favored canceling the scheduled “live town hall” on March 26.
“It’s a circus that has been created,” Teal said. “This is a serious deliberative process that we engaged in, that we began, and then to have a circus go on, I don’t understand how that’s going to help us with our plan.”
EARLIER STORY
Douglas County cancels its RWR meeting in San Luis Valley
DOUGLAS County commissioners have canceled their scheduled March 26 meeting in the San Luis Valley on the Renewable Water Resources water exportation proposal.
For Commissioners Abe Laydon and George Teal, the meeting was being turned into a “circus” and a “protest” by Valley residents who have been voicing their opposition to the RWR proposal for the damage it would cause to the Rio Grande Basin and the agricultural and farming industries.
For Commissioner Lora Thomas, the cancellation made sense because “all of the information we’ve heard makes it clear RWR is not a viable project for consideration for Douglas County’s ARPA dollars.”
Teal said he’s been hearing from Valley supporters of the Renewable Water Resources proposal who feel intimidated and wouldn’t show up at the community meeting.
“I’ve been communicated to in last week of individuals who would support this, who would participate in the RWR plan in the Valley, they feel like, quite frankly I think it’s appropriate, we were just talking about Russia and Ukraine, because they feel like
they are being silenced, they feel like they are being intimidated, and if they were to express their actual opinions, they would have consequences.”
“It’s a circus that has been created,” Teal said. “This is a serious deliberative process that we engaged in, that we began, and then to have a circus go on, I don’t understand how that’s going to help us with our plan.”
Laydon said he was hoping for an “authentic engagement with stakeholders” around the Renewable Water Resources proposal to pump 20,000-acre feet a year of water from the Rio Grande Basin to Douglas County.
“But unfortunately we’re dealing with what is now theater,” Laydon said. “In an effort to engage in dialogue with Valley residents, it’s just been hijacked by a group of folks and has been marketed as a protest event.”
Laydon and Teal said they would still like to find their way to the San Luis Valley to meet with local elected officials and with residents, but that they would do that on their own.
“My point of going down was that we could have actual conversations and get past the visceral, emotional aspects of this project,” Teal said. “I don’t see the ability to have that goal achieved.”
Teal said it’s not news to him that there is opposition to the proposal.
Douglas County has had six work sessions on the RWR plan. Throughout the sessions they’ve been told by state water managers and Rio Grande water managers that groundwater pumping is over appropriated in the San Luis Valley and that the drought over the past 20 years has had a devastating impact on efforts to recover the aquifers of the Rio Grande.
Thomas has voiced her opposition, but Teal and Laydon have been undeterred in their pursuit of the RWR plan.
Teal said the commissioners have heard repeatedly in their review of the Renewable Water Resources plan that there is a million-acre feet of water available in the Upper Rio Grande Basin.
“Crafting forward-looking water policy in the arid west is serious business,” Laydon said. “I think grandstanding makes this job harder.”
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