Is Otero Gambling with Lottery Money: Pueblo Chieftain

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The Pueblo Chieftain Online Page 2 of 5 continue farming and using the water that goes with his land, as always. However, the water can never leave the land, even if it changes ownership. The water cannot be sold. Otero County would get joint ownership of the easement - and the water associated with it - with the shareholders of the easement property. That effectively guarantees that the water cannot leave the land. The easements include tax benefits for landowners, which may be their chief attraction. Those can include a federal -tax charitable deduction, and state -tax credits, equal to the charitable deduction, that are transferrable and can be sold to others. GOCO, funded by money from the Colorado Lottery, has a mandate to preserve the state's outdoor heritage through strategic grants and partnerships. Since 1994, GOCO has awarded almost $290 million across the state to protect and enhance wildlife, parks, rivers, trails and open space. However, the Otero County easements, with their stipulations on the water, put GOCO on some unfamiliar turf. "We had no experience doing this," said Swartout. "Our board approved a pilot program to see if it could be done, and hoping it could be done, but knowing it would be difficult." The degree of that difficulty caught many by surprise. The process began in 2002, when, after a GOCO pilot study, Otero County applied for a $6 million legacy grant for the easement program. According to that proposal, GOCO would pay $4 million over three years, while the county paid $1.5 million in matching money. GOCO eventually agreed to pay $1 million through its legacy program with the county matching 25 percent, for a total of about $1.3 million. "We were hoping to keep water in the valley, and our water works committee was looking at different things that could work," said County Commissioner Bob Bauserman. The easements would help to keep farmers on the land, and the grants were a way to spread our money around and to get more." Following GOCO guidelines, the county drew up a point system by which applicants would be eligible for the easement program. A list of 12 applicants eventually was cut to nine shareholders in six area canals (Catlin, Holbrook, Nine -Mile, Otero, Oxford Farmers and Rocky Ford Highline). The applicants, in turn, began the required appraisal process to determine the value of their easements. In simple terms, that is based on the difference in the worth of the land with and without the water - its agricultural value compared http: / /www. chieftain. com /print.php ?article= /metro /1090735200/2 7/28/2004