Progress Now Action

Those of us who believe SDS is ill-advised need to balance the public comments of support that our utility has been drumming up.

If you haven't already, you can find more information and peruse the Environmental Impact Statement at www.sdseis.com.

Perhaps you've noticed the large ad in every issue of The Gazette for the past few months? Or the letters from utilities officials and our Mayor published in The Gazette? The ads in other local newspapers? We've also been implored to support SDS in bill-stuffers and a separate direct-mail piece sent to our homes and businesses. It's sad enough that you and I are being billed every month to fund this public relations campaign. To add insult to injury, we are not being provided the facts in an objective manner, but rather we are getting spin from our own utility. I think this happens for two reasons: 1)utility employees report to a board of directors (City Council), which as we know all-too-well serves at the pleasure of the Housing and Building Association. 2)for the past 100 years our utility has been in the growth business; it's not an easy habit to break.

A typical example of this spin appeared in an opinion piece in Wednesday's Gazette. In "Running out of time to support water project," Utilities' chief water services officer Bruce McCormick repeated the following talking points:

1. SPIN: "We need SDS. We can't maintain our quality of life or a healthy economy without it."

This statement is based on an old wives tale that just won't die. If you believe our city must grow perpetually in order to have a healthy local economy, then you should probably support SDS. If you believe we cannot grow forever, thanks in large part to hard limits on water supply, then you must also believe that we can have a healthy local economy and a stable population. The evidence overwhelmingly supports this. After a 17-year growth boom our metro area has no prosperity to show for it. We have huge infrastructure backlogs, substandard police and fire response, annual budget crises, porta potties in place of locked public restrooms in our parks, a threat of selling parks, sales tax increases on the ballot every few years, and the list goes on. It is costing us dearly to keep up with growth. Our local economy will actually be much healthier if we do not borrow a billion dollars to build SDS and instead we get unhooked from growth. There will never be a better time. Once we build SDS, we will be desperate to grow in order to get more water customers helping to pay for the two billion dollars plus cost of the project, including financing.

2. SPIN: "Without SDS, we will eventually run short of water, requiring severe and potentially permanent water restrictions that would make it impossible to maintain our quality of life and a healthy economy."

The fact is we will only run short of water if we continue to connect new customers to our water system. We have plenty of water supply and delivery capacity today to meet the needs of current customers. So a more truthful statement would be, "without SDS, we will either have to stop expanding our city or we will eventually run short of water." It is true that if we don't build SDS but we do continue to expand Colorado Springs, there will be a negative impact on quality of life and our local economy. But...if we do not build SDS, and we do not continue expanding our city, our quality of life and our local economy will be vastly superior to what we’d achieve if we build SDS and remain addicted to growth. Our utility will not tell us that, or even provide that as an “alternative” view in a summary of the facts for its customers. Instead, we are being “sold” SDS. “It is good for you. Without it, life will be bad. Very, very bad. Now take your medicine (we won’t remind you how expensive it is).”

 3. SPIN: “SDS will provide water we need for our future.” Time and again the spin provided by our utility attempts to make us believe SDS is essential to guarantee water for our own families. That is patently false. We have water today. SDS is only necessary if we want to increase water delivery to the city so that Banning Lewis Ranch and other new developments can be built out. So, a more factual statement would be, “SDS will provide water for future real estate developments.”

If you’re in need of a few suggestions for your comments to the Bureau of Reclamation, here they are. If you use any of these, please rewrite them in your own words:

1. The population growth projections justifying the need for SDS are not predestined to occur. They will only occur if our city builds SDS and continues approving new subdivisions and connecting them to our water system.

2. The cost of building SDS will put a huge financial burden on the ratepayers in future years. The benefits of SDS to current ratepayers are questionable. The cost will work a hardship on families by impacting their bills for life-supporting utilities.

3. Multiple studies predict declining future snowpack in the Colorado River basin. SDS represents a huge, expensive gamble. It could be an empty pipe that bankrupts Colorado Springs Utilities in a future of declining water supply.

4. SDS will have a negative environmental impact. Millions of dollars in mitigation will be necessary on Fountain Creek. Water quality and quantity in agricultural communities on the Arkansas River downstream from Fountain Creek will be negatively impacted. These impacts are not in the best interests of our neighbors, our state, or even Colorado Springs.

5. Our city and state must make every effort to reduce our carbon footprint. The financial and environmental costs of generating electricity to power the massive pumps operating 24/7 in the SDS are too great.

6. Three pipelines deliver water to Colorado Springs today. This should be adequate redundancy to allow maintenance of these facilities. A billion-dollar pipeline project with massive ongoing financial and environmental impacts is not a prudent solution if three pipelines do not provide sufficient redundancy. For the above reasons, it is best that the Southern Delivery System not be built.