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<br />High and Dry
<br />
<br />Gary Boyce's ballot initiatives
<br />went under. but he'll most likely
<br />resurface.
<br />
<br />By Marty Jones
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<br />'ill ac:k in lat~ October. Gary Boyce didn't
<br />r seem like a man headed for a whipping.
<br />I Settling into a red leather chair in his
<br />~Denver office~-the boardroom,swank
<br />Churchill Room at the Brown Palace-Bop:e W3S
<br />the picture of cowboy calm while discussing the two
<br />initiative:> he and his water<ievelopment company.
<br />Stodcman's Waler, had successfully placed on lbe
<br />Novemi:>er 3 ballol Amendments 15 and 16 would
<br />have required farmers to install flow meters on
<br />about 2,OCO shaIlow ......ells in the San Luis VaDey and
<br />lHj' lor wafer removed from under state lands there.
<br />Tne amendments were the righ[ thing for G::llorado.
<br />Boyce claimed: if passed. the decades-long \\/;Iter
<br />gT<lbs on the part of the vaDey's good or boy net.
<br />work ...."lJuId soon be a thing oC the past. ending the
<br />abuse of the region's most precious resource..
<br />'"What you've got here is a bunch of corporate
<br />farmers who are taking advant3ge of the syst~-
<br />Boyce argued. 'Tm simply sayirlgthat's not right-
<br />8o]-ce's numerous foes didn't.~. The OJ:/!XlSiticn
<br />to his initiatives indudeda lengt:hy list oCenvirorunen-
<br />tal groUp5, agriculture organizations. virtually ~
<br />ll~~ in the stYe 3Ild a biparti":;an alliance of the
<br />slate's politicians. Gubernatorial candidates Gail
<br />SchoettJer and Bill (mens, Senator Ben N"lghthO!"3e
<br />CarnpbenandR~XottMcIrmis~just
<br />a ~v of those v.hl) claimed Boyce's measures....-ere an
<br />attempt to bankrupt the farmers who opposed his
<br />company's plan to remove and sell water from
<br />beneath the \'alley's alkali-dusted soil Boyce, they
<br />claimed, "-'dS a black-hearted businessman in a
<br />\\t'"estern-cut suit. seeking ~ge on the salt.oHhe-
<br />earth!ype$ who had mocked him as a youth and who
<br />nowtighthim in the st'le'swalercotn1s.
<br />-He's mad at the potato farmers' kids because
<br />they had a few more dollars to spend than he did
<br />when he was a kid, - said Lewis H. Entl':, a
<br />Republican from Hooper, Colorado, and the
<br />District 60 state representative who led the fight
<br />against Boyce. "He's bitter and vindictive. So now
<br />he's gonna get even with us spud farmers come
<br />hell or high "''3.ler. It's a personal deal Vtith him,~
<br />added Entz. deSCribing Boyce as ~a drugstore
<br />cowboy-he rides around 011 his ranch in a
<br />Humvee \,ith a Sl,,(-gun on his hip. - Greg Gosar, a
<br />Monle Vista organic farmer. agreed, .He's trying
<br />to resolvl': some problem from when he was
<br />raised in. the San Luis Valley: Gosar said. -He
<br />thinks he was disai.n1inated against and abused.
<br />He came to one of our meetings once. and when
<br />we asked why he v.'3.~ doing this, he told us.. T'-e
<br />never been hit that I didn't hit back: He'5 still
<br />looking for a llIe---that's the ....<ly r see it'
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<br />Staring down the length of a smoldering cigar
<br />fresh from his personal stash in the Churchill's
<br />privJ.te humidor, Boyce blew off his attackers'
<br />characterizations, '1'h3(S the way they are down
<br />in the San Luis VaDey. Those kinds of things have
<br />al~~'3.}-S worked for them down there: he said,
<br />Boyce spent about half a million dollars paying
<br />staffers to collect enough petition signatures to get
<br />his initiatives on the ballot and another $-I00.~ on
<br />advertisements during the campaign. But
<br />Amendments 15and 16 bit the dust hard. by a near
<br />three-l:o-one rTJargin. Still. Boyce isn't willing to con-
<br />cede thOlt his efforts might ha..-e been iJl.,ad..is.ed.
<br />Instead he bla.mes uninformed ,,'oters for the
<br />tidal wave of opposition that swamped the
<br />amendments.
<br />Ihese were very complicated issues,- Boyce
<br />S2,'"S today, "and iliere \vag just no way to edl1CJte
<br />the voters to understand them in this short or a time.
<br />And ':"ith all the hot-button issues on the ballot, our
<br />measures became a lowpriontv for the voters,~
<br />Entz offers another expl~nation: "This just
<br />~ho""'''S you that when people come down her.:' and
<br />try to start trouble. we ......ork them o"'er.~
<br />TIlls \I,'3.5n"t the first time 3 plan to export ....'3.ter
<br />from the region had met with resistance. In the
<br />early 1990s, another outfit. Americ3n Water
<br />Developm~nt Incorporated, had attempted to
<br />imt:'lement a similar plan.. In response. the ta.'<Pay.
<br />ers in the region agreed to double theit property
<br />ta..-.::es to hmd theit opposition to the pI:m, and they
<br />won, "Vhen A~VDI went to court with applications
<br />for removing the water from the valley's aquifer.
<br />the courts rejected the company's propos.1.l, in
<br />part because of intense local opposition.
<br />Following the deleat, AWDr sold its land to
<br />Boyce. whose Baca Grande Ranch bordered
<br />AWDrs holdings. Boyce had left the region in his
<br />leens and entered the eque5trian trade, working
<br />as a hand in various stables around the country,
<br />He went on to become an e:q>ert in training 3Ild
<br />dealing in high-dollar horses, and his wealthy,
<br />international clientele induded a nwnber of finan.
<br />cial wizards who Boyce says assisted him in mak.
<br />ing lucrative investments over the past two
<br />decades. After returning to the San Luis Valley. he
<br />used those monies to purchase his current real-
<br />estate holdings and later joined forces with
<br />F<UTallon Capital Management, a San Francisco-
<br />based investment company, to market and sell
<br />w:tter rights in the area.
<br />According to Boyce. he and his firm are the real
<br />victims, After announcing to the area's citizec.ry
<br />last year that he intended to pull 150.00 acre-feet
<br />of ....'dler from the San Luis Valley and sen it else-
<br />.....here, Boyce says he became the trrget of the
<br />area's agribusiness legions. His now.failed ballot
<br />measures, he says, were an attempt to right a
<br />string of VtTongs carried out by these Entz-Ied
<br />foes, who he claims have gone out of their w-ay to
<br />W1derrni.ne his enterprise, But. he says, requiring
<br />farmers to monitor and pay for their use of w;1ter
<br />under state Lmds is not an attempt to draw blood
<br />from his atl.3ckers: rather, he calls it a step to......ard
<br />~making sure there's a le\'el pla,ing .tield.~
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<br />oo. don7t ~ee hoW Pm going to pu1:" t,he ger~"'"
<br />in the bottle.. Like my old footb 0.:1,-;,
<br />used to say, there7s always nex_ yeaR'.....
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<br />
<br />Blowing off his detractors: Gary Bcrce cont!.rnplates his defeat
<br />I " ,
<br />To Entz:, the fact lhat Bo~ got these measures after. though he's not offering any timetables for
<br />on the sbte ballot in the lirsipL1.ce was a piIlaging doing so, Nor is he ruling out a rerum to the pout-
<br />of the state's political sYstem, proof that money ic:al arena 1fwe have what I perceive to be u.fif2ir;
<br />Can buy a button under the futgers of Colol"3.do attempts to destroy my business through biDs in
<br />..-oters. "It's the worst abuse of the ballot-initiatives the legislature, I would indeed be forced to
<br />process that I've ever seen.. Entz says. "It's the defend myself: he: says.
<br />first time an individual company has bad enough Entz, who's being forced from office this
<br />money to put issues on the ballot to destroy the January by term limits. do~sn't think this is the:
<br />economy oCthe San Luis Vaney." 'end ofh.is constituents" water battles, e:ither, ~Oh,;
<br />And Boyce says it won't be the las.t ~As far as hell fuJd something to harass us over: he sars of:
<br />these twu initiatives go," Boyce says.. "I think it's Boyce. "Somebody will fir over hi!: property or.....e
<br />just the beginning, and I don't see how rm going won't cross the street just right .and he~1i have us,
<br />to put the genie back in the bottle. Uke myoId back in court before IO(1g.~
<br />football coach used to S3Y, there's always ne;(\: Boyce believes that in spite of his re:soundlng'
<br />year, Hen, it took Doug Bruce three runs to get defeat he may have won at least a piece of his,
<br />the TABOR Amendments passed; something like most recent battle. ~I think we were very success-:
<br />this. it could take four, But frankly, rm tired of this ful in that we made people aware that there's
<br />political stuf[ and I'm glad the election is o~-er. It's some:thing out of kilter ....ith the water policies in
<br />time to get back to business: the San Luis Valley: he says. "They"',! sb.rt figur-
<br />Which B()yce says could mean heading into the iog these things out, and pretty'soon the chickens
<br />state's w;atercourt and applying for the water he's will come home to roose [J
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