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Otero le ,ers: Ark Valley should pay for reservoir enlargement <br />htt p:/ /www.chieftaincorri/prirt.php3 ?story =l <br />District director Tom Pointon of Las Animas said if the directors don't develop more storage space, they <br />aren't doing their j ob. <br />"And if we don't get some resolution in these two (Rocky Ford Ditch) cases, we can't even get a <br />feasibility study for the enlargement." <br />Pointon said agriculture accounts for three- quarters of the water used in Colorado, but no longer is the <br />main economic force in the state. <br />"It's important, but it's not the main thing," he said. <br />Ron Aschermann, a director from Rocky Ford and a member of the Rocky Ford Ditch sellers group, said <br />the proposed sale "is about a willing buyer and a willing seller." <br />He said some farmers thought agriculture might turn around so they kept their water rights during the <br />1983 sale, but by the time the second (proposed) Rocky Ford Ditch sale came up, things weren't looking <br />so good. <br />"The people who hung on were the farmers," Aschermann said, "the guys who had dirt under their <br />fingernails. <br />"It's been a long battle. I've been involved in the whole thing." <br />Aschermann reminded the other directors that "groceries just don't happen on the shelves." <br />"We're dealing with NAFTA. We get one crop a year. A farmer in the Imperial Valley (in California) uses <br />30 acre -feet of water a year; we use 6." <br />Director David Sarton of Colorado Springs said El Paso County accounts for 70 percent of the mill levy <br />that supports the conservancy district. <br />"Colorado Springs needs the reoperation and the expanded storage space in the reservoirs," he said. "I <br />think 80 percent of the (state's) water still goes to ag, but I don't think 80 percent of the economy is ag. <br />The vast majority of our state depends on every other means of trade and commerce and business. We've <br />got to make allowances for all these other uses." <br />Sarton said times are changing. He cited the new use for Fort Lyon and the steel mill's declining <br />importance in Pueblo. <br />"All of us up and down the valley need to look to find viable opportunities, rather than trying to pump <br />blood into a dying horse." <br />©1996 -2000 The pueblo Chieftain Online <br />3 of 3 8/31/0110:53 AM <br />