Conduit Advisers, District Bridge Communication Gap: Pueblo Chieftain

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The Pueblo Chieftain Online Pagel of 2 Conduit advisers, district bridge communication By KARL LICIS THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN While stopping short of singing "Kumbaya," members of the Arkansas Valley Conduit Advisory Committee nevertheless found a round table to have some therapeutic benefits on Tuesday. "It was real positive and very constructive," committee member Dannie McMillan of Lamar said following Tuesday's meeting at the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District headquarters. "We tried to get everyone on the same page. We had a lack of communication that we needed to address. Everyone feels it (the conduit) is very important to the entire valley." The proposed conduit was part of the original Fryingpan- Arkansas Project, which was authorized in 1962. It is intended to provide high - quality drinking water from Lake Pueblo to downstream communities. The proposal has been mostly dormant for 40 years, but recently received new life. U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R- Colo., in June secured $85 million in funding for the project and is working to add another $85 million, for a federal commitment of $170 million. Local communities would have to contribute 25 percent, or $50 million. Tuesday's special session was called after a committee meeting last week in La Junta, where a presentation by the Black & Veatch consulting company on a $25,000 financial feasibility study approved by the Southeastern district became heated. Several committee members expressed feelings that the Southeastern district had proceeded without sufficient input from the advisory committee, and contended the study was unnecessary. (A $200,000 study by the GEI company was completed for Otero County's WaterWorks! Committee last summer. It estimated the project cost at $200 million.) Asked what the Southeastern district expected to learn from the new study, Phil Reynolds, the district's chief financial officer, noted the GEI study had used numbers from a 1972 study to determine the amount of water available for communities east of Pueblo. He said those numbers, used throughout the GEI study, were historically inaccurate, were formulated during a wet - weather cycle, did not reflect the recent drought, and did not provide a good basis for the conduit. "We wanted to come back and take a look at these numbers and make sure that with the historical average, and with what's really available, we take a look at the conduit and verify the cost associated with that because the size of the pipe is a huge cost," Reynolds said. "If those numbers are reduced, it changes the size and the cost of the pipe." http : / /www.chieftain.com /print.php ?article= /metro /1092204000/10 8/11/2004