Decision Delayed on Lake Pueblo Charges: Pueblo Chieftain

• Description: Decision Delayed on Lake Pueblo Charges: Pueblo Chieftain
• State: CO
• Date: 4/4/2001
• Author: Amos, James
• Title: Decision Delayed on Lake Pueblo Charges: Pueblo Chieftain
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: News Article/Press Release

The Pueblo Chieftain Online - Wednesday April 04, 2001
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The big cities already have agreed to pay a 15
percent surcharge on their own shares of the
enlarged space to help pay for the water
management space. But those surcharges will
only pay for about 7,500 acre -feet of water
management, which is hardly more than the 5,000
acre -feet already guaranteed to hold winter
farming water.
The district's committee charged with planning
the enlargement project couldn't come to an
agreement on how the rest of the water
management space should be funded and so
district staff suggested setting the question aside
for a time.
District staff have suggested two ways to pay for
the water management space, which will be
studied in the coming months.
One idea would require users of the water
management space and groups that buy water
from the district to pay fees to reimburse the
district for the space.
The other idea involves extending the district's
nine- county property tax for five or six years after
most of it expires around 2027.
District financial chief Phil Reynolds explained
that the district will have repaid the federal
government for the Fryingpan - Arkansas project
by 2027 and that the .822 mill property tax would
drop to a lower level to continue funding the
district's overhead.
The property tax now costs the owner of a
$100,000 house $8.22 a year. It generated about
$4 million last year, most of which the district
gives to the federal government to repay the
project's debt.
Extending the tax would require a vote of all
residents in the conservancy district, which
stretches along the Arkansas River roughly from
Buena Vista to Lamar and includes Colorado
Springs and Fountain Creek.
Small- community representatives earlier argued
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