State and City Ignore Sustainability in Approach to Water
| By Dave Gardner - Nov 25th, 2007 at 11:53 am EST |
| Also listed in: COSprings Progress |
Comments |
Mail to a Friend
Categories: Economic Fairness & Security, Environment / Conservation, Public Infrastructure / Transportation, Budget Priorities, Immigration
Categories: Economic Fairness & Security, Environment / Conservation, Public Infrastructure / Transportation, Budget Priorities, Immigration
A front page story in today's Gazette (11/25/07)is a good indication of the insanity we face in Colorado about water: http://www.gazette.com/articles/water_30128___article.html/colorado_drought.html
It's great local residents stepped up and conserved water when the need became apparent. Our reward? Our city-owned utility has continued to connect thousands of new customers to our water system during this time, AND subsidizes those new connections through artificially low tap fees. Our City Council keeps these tap fees low out of fear that realistic fees might slow the growth. Perhaps logic and big-picture thinking are not their long suit?
This story also presumes the drought is over. This winter is not looking good, and we've been warned that snowpack in our state over the long haul is likely to decline significantly.
It's pretty sad that most attention, according to this story, is focused on bringing more water to Front Range cities so they can continue to grow. Almost an afterthought, even in this story, is the idea of living within our means. The story implies we are just accommodating population growth in the city and the state. The fact is our city and our state spend millions of our tax dollars every year to court and subsidize growth.
And while they are sniffing the cocaine of growth-based prosperity illusion, the growth-boosters are not accounting for the billions we will spend, sadly, to divert more water to the cities. Or maybe they are counting those billions? After all, the construction industry is part of the growth-booster special interests who will profit from those billions. It's just the everyday citizens who will lose. We'll conserve, and then we'll still pay - for water diversion projects, for the environmental cleanup of Fountain Creek, for other environmental costs of water diversions, and for killing agriculture in our state.
Apparently we are learning very little from drought, and learning very little from Atlanta's water crisis. And our city co-opts the entire concept of sustainability by adopting "sustainable growth" as a major tenet of its strategic plan.
The saddest thing is this reporter and too many of us think there is nothing we can do about it.
It's great local residents stepped up and conserved water when the need became apparent. Our reward? Our city-owned utility has continued to connect thousands of new customers to our water system during this time, AND subsidizes those new connections through artificially low tap fees. Our City Council keeps these tap fees low out of fear that realistic fees might slow the growth. Perhaps logic and big-picture thinking are not their long suit?
This story also presumes the drought is over. This winter is not looking good, and we've been warned that snowpack in our state over the long haul is likely to decline significantly.
It's pretty sad that most attention, according to this story, is focused on bringing more water to Front Range cities so they can continue to grow. Almost an afterthought, even in this story, is the idea of living within our means. The story implies we are just accommodating population growth in the city and the state. The fact is our city and our state spend millions of our tax dollars every year to court and subsidize growth.
And while they are sniffing the cocaine of growth-based prosperity illusion, the growth-boosters are not accounting for the billions we will spend, sadly, to divert more water to the cities. Or maybe they are counting those billions? After all, the construction industry is part of the growth-booster special interests who will profit from those billions. It's just the everyday citizens who will lose. We'll conserve, and then we'll still pay - for water diversion projects, for the environmental cleanup of Fountain Creek, for other environmental costs of water diversions, and for killing agriculture in our state.
Apparently we are learning very little from drought, and learning very little from Atlanta's water crisis. And our city co-opts the entire concept of sustainability by adopting "sustainable growth" as a major tenet of its strategic plan.
The saddest thing is this reporter and too many of us think there is nothing we can do about it.
Comments are closed for this post.