> The fight over the water has pitted residents of Fort Garland who have plumbing and pay for metered water against those living outside the city limits with cisterns. The board of the Fort Garland Water and Sanitation District — which cut off water sales to rural residents Aug. 1 in a 3-2 vote that wasn’t even on its meeting agenda — has devolved into shouting matches and dysfunction.
I don't begrudge people who choose to live outside of municipalities in order to avoid taxes, but it's hard to empathize with them when the municipality they're not paying into makes a decision on behalf of their own voters/taxpayers. Hopefully the county/private sector resolves it soon.
I can help a lot with this situation… My product “Sink Twice” was specifically designed for water crisis and helps both on and off grid. It takes about 5 minutes to install and saves tremendous amounts of water for more than a decade… and it is made in Dacono, Colorado.
it is absolutely wild that a 3-to-2 vote that wasn't announced beforehand could put so many people at risk. obviously governments haven't acted to serve the people since at least Citizen's United, but this is like, society breaking down shit.
Seems like an everyone sucks here situation. People who bought houses and chose an off grid life in a water stressed area and did nothing to alleviate the situation, only add consumption. People who want to water their lawns and are unable to adjust their personal behavior in times of need. People with “I got mine” mentality who don’t want to share the space because they got there first and were able to exploit the resources to their desire. The town governance and realtors who keep allowing the sale of properties when there’s no water.
I can't speak to this particular county but the vibe I get from friends of mine who live in this part of Colorado is that the municipalities/counties will do anything/everything they can to stick it to the off grid crowd who are seen as poor and trashy in the best case and evil dangerous sov-cits, anarchists or other anti-government types in the worst case when in reality many/most of them simply wanted to live in BFE and it's not a money or ideological thing and they just want to do whatever works. They buy water from someone who trucks it in no different and with no more thought than they buy propane or pay for their septic to be pumped and trucked out.
Like every small town/county, I bet if you follow the trail of financial and ideological interests of the parties involved you'll find that the personalities involved are motivated by more than just whatever their oath of office is. Seeing as there's only one water hauler I'd look into who he pissed off.
After reading the article I come to the conclusion that this was never really about water. There wasn't even a water shortage, only a technical issue that would be resolved.
This was about some people on the waterboard not being able to manage angry - semi-aggressive- people properly.
And now those people can irrigate their lawns while others can't even drink, wash or cook.
Sounds like the water pump failed, and while it was being fixed restrictions were put in place for everyone. Some folks didn't like the restrictions and they blamed the folks who came to buy water because they live off the grid nearby, even if it does not appear those sales would change any of the restrictions.
Sad situation. Fear of outsiders and other people often pop up when people are stressed.
Colorado Water access law is truly crazy and arcane in some cases (such as this, it would seem).
Source: Had a friend in college that interned for a group of attorneys in Western, CO whose entire practice was around water access rights.
She explained to me some of the ridiculous things that neighbors requiring common water access could do to each other - based purely on who was using the water first.
Massive amounts of groundwater are being sucked out of Colorado by Chinese and ME companies that, for instance, grow alfalfa crops and then ship them to their home countries.
I find this quite cynical, but I also can't speak to half of your family, ha!
I am one of the folks who, in my youth, purchased land in between Fort Garland and San Luis, with dreams of off-grid living. I succeeded, mostly, but not without many hiccups - the locals being one of them.
For me, "off-grid" was about _control_: control over my mortgage (none!), bills (no monthly subscriptions to privatized power companies generating profit!), and, well, life in general. I'd say the general theme wasn't so much about "sticking it to the man" (what's to stick and who?) or "being self reliant" (impossible), but about fighting classism _to some degree_ via a veritable case of civil disobedience.
To my understanding, it is basically illegal OR extremely difficult to find a living situation where someone else (bank, etc.) isn't profiting off folks, and I find that, well, avarice. But you could find a situation like that out in the valley, because land was cheap and you could "get away" with a lot out there, which basically is just another way of saying folks could _afford_ to be poor.
America is entrenched in classism, and everywhere I look someone with less money getting fucked. And this is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to building code enforcement: wealthy folks pay the same amount as poor folks for things like permits, et. al. ($$), code means nothing when you can afford to hire engineers to prove its safe, pay for costly zoning variations, etc. So as harsh as the valley was in climate, it was basically an oasis of sorts to younger me for all those reasons.
All that to say: there are other genres of fiction worth exploring :)
I'm one of those off grid people, but I'm not looking for 100% off grid.
What I want is the equivalent of an UPS, but for everything.
If the municipal power grid, water and sewage go down. I want to be able to live mostly like before.
If there's a disruption in the logistics chain for the grocery store for any reason, I can live with what I have and can grow for a week or two in relative comfort, a month would suck.
If the wired internet connection goes down, I want to have a wireless option that automatically takes over.
The land is cheap in the San Luis for a reason. It can't support much life. Ultimately these are not multi-generational folks being driven out. They are newcomers who have overwhelmed the existing infrastructure.
Fort Garland sits just below Blanca Peak, the highest in the Sangre de Cristo, which receives a ton of precipitation. So what's the problem?
The pump broke.
There are water issues in the San Luis Valley. It's a cold desert which happens to be the best place in the United States to grow a recently popular cash crop: quinoa. About 77% of water use in the region is for agriculture, not weird prepper cisterns. This supply is strained, but the current drought status is only D1.
TFA is really more of a closing-frontier issue than a drought issue. The states northeast of Pennsylvania manage all of their land via townships. Everywhere else you can get these weird municipal-unincorporated disputes. See also: Walmart locating outside city limits to avoid taxes.
Kind of funny that this warrants a news article. I've been living in South Africa for the last couple years and this is basically just normal. The municipality just doesn't pay the water bill, so we don't have water half the time. What everyone does is install a giant tank and pump at their house so they can shower when the water is out. How quickly you get used to it...
> Others are wondering whether to scrap plans to build on their property, leaving home for showers and limiting their toilet flushes.
> The pump failed in June, before the system’s planned overhaul. Townspeople were asked to use the “bare minimum” of water — flush the toilets, but don’t water the lawn.
It blows my mind they are using flushing toilets in the desert. Composting toilets are not some new-fangled technology, and require zero water. You live in a desert! Come on!
> “These men were brought in because I had put them on a water restriction schedule,” Pacheco said in an interview. “They are upset they can’t water their lawns while people can’t have water to actually live.”
Watering lawns? In the desert? How is this not illegal? This feels like the entire climate change "controversy" in a nutshell: people so brazenly into the abuse of their own resources that they will fight to continue wasting them until they no longer exist.
> multistory homes with sweeping decks facing Blanca Peak
> The water crisis has forced older residents to contemplate selling their dream homes, where they had planned to retire
The article's framing seems to waver between "how dare you do this to the poor and starving" and "how dare you do this to the older, richer retirees". I'm sure there are people of all kinds affected by the water issue but it's not as simple as the clickbaity title suggests.
Anyone immediately think of Pump Six, by Paolo Bacigalupi, when they got to this part of the story?
> Salina Pacheco, who is the manager of the town water district and training to become a water system operator, knew it was coming. She had been talking to the five-member water board about it for two years and had helped secure a $105,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs to upgrade the water system, which was suffering from “extreme water hammer” because water traveling through the pipes in opposite directions was colliding.
> The pump failed in June, before the system’s planned overhaul.*
This thread is getting weird and with a lack of understanding; There's absolutely no reason to have a negative attitude to people wanting to buy water. I grew up 5mins from the largest shopping center in the southern hemisphere and we still had to occasionally buy water when there was a drought since we were on a rural stretch of road just off the main highway.
You don't have to live far out of town to have no town water. The pipes don't go far out of city/town limits at all.
You always get periods of prolonged drought even in otherwise perfectly reasonable self-sustainable properties.
This isn't some "HAHAHA suck it libertarians" attitude. This is a "anyone who lives slightly outside of town wanting to buy water and being told no" type of situation.
Scrolling throug the comments here, one could conclude the HN community finds it to be justified to remove water access without warning to people they find disageeable.
I don't know what people expect moving to south central Colorado, maybe they're taken in by the "cheap land" posts that flood everything like craigslist for Costilla and Alamosa counties. If you've never been there, it's amazing anything grows on that land at all (it's just high desert) and like the article says the people are really poor there; it's an entirely different world than the front range that people seem to extrapolate to the rest of Colorado. Everybody feels entitled to live in Colorado, but our problems are going to come to a head sooner or later when we face the reality that even the front range doesn't frankly have enough water for all of it's citizens or it's ag activies (and we keep building more and more crazy dam and pipeline projects). I personally believe we're going to see a major crisis level drought in the front range in the next 20-30 years that ends up potentially causing a significant population shrinkage in our metros, and it will likely be even more acute elsewhere in the state (as the front range metro basically gets preferential treatment to everywhere else).
Overall it seems tough living around there, large parcels of land were divided and sold 30+ years ago via mail order and land values haven' tracked inflation in a lot of cases. A lot of people moving there for a second chance or fresh start.
30 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 48.9 ms ] threadI don't begrudge people who choose to live outside of municipalities in order to avoid taxes, but it's hard to empathize with them when the municipality they're not paying into makes a decision on behalf of their own voters/taxpayers. Hopefully the county/private sector resolves it soon.
Like every small town/county, I bet if you follow the trail of financial and ideological interests of the parties involved you'll find that the personalities involved are motivated by more than just whatever their oath of office is. Seeing as there's only one water hauler I'd look into who he pissed off.
This was about some people on the waterboard not being able to manage angry - semi-aggressive- people properly.
And now those people can irrigate their lawns while others can't even drink, wash or cook.
Sad situation. Fear of outsiders and other people often pop up when people are stressed.
Source: Had a friend in college that interned for a group of attorneys in Western, CO whose entire practice was around water access rights.
She explained to me some of the ridiculous things that neighbors requiring common water access could do to each other - based purely on who was using the water first.
"No no we meant off-grid in every aspect save one!"
I know these people, half my family is these people. I've listened to them rail against the man for decades and decades and decades.
When you tell them that the invisible hands of the free market will gladly sell them the bootstraps they require, they get mighty angry.
I am one of the folks who, in my youth, purchased land in between Fort Garland and San Luis, with dreams of off-grid living. I succeeded, mostly, but not without many hiccups - the locals being one of them.
For me, "off-grid" was about _control_: control over my mortgage (none!), bills (no monthly subscriptions to privatized power companies generating profit!), and, well, life in general. I'd say the general theme wasn't so much about "sticking it to the man" (what's to stick and who?) or "being self reliant" (impossible), but about fighting classism _to some degree_ via a veritable case of civil disobedience.
To my understanding, it is basically illegal OR extremely difficult to find a living situation where someone else (bank, etc.) isn't profiting off folks, and I find that, well, avarice. But you could find a situation like that out in the valley, because land was cheap and you could "get away" with a lot out there, which basically is just another way of saying folks could _afford_ to be poor.
America is entrenched in classism, and everywhere I look someone with less money getting fucked. And this is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to building code enforcement: wealthy folks pay the same amount as poor folks for things like permits, et. al. ($$), code means nothing when you can afford to hire engineers to prove its safe, pay for costly zoning variations, etc. So as harsh as the valley was in climate, it was basically an oasis of sorts to younger me for all those reasons.
All that to say: there are other genres of fiction worth exploring :)
What I want is the equivalent of an UPS, but for everything.
If the municipal power grid, water and sewage go down. I want to be able to live mostly like before.
If there's a disruption in the logistics chain for the grocery store for any reason, I can live with what I have and can grow for a week or two in relative comfort, a month would suck.
If the wired internet connection goes down, I want to have a wireless option that automatically takes over.
But cynicism aside, this is just the beginning. This will scale to a lot of the US. Even folks in the burbs.
Saved you a click.
Fort Garland sits just below Blanca Peak, the highest in the Sangre de Cristo, which receives a ton of precipitation. So what's the problem?
The pump broke.
There are water issues in the San Luis Valley. It's a cold desert which happens to be the best place in the United States to grow a recently popular cash crop: quinoa. About 77% of water use in the region is for agriculture, not weird prepper cisterns. This supply is strained, but the current drought status is only D1.
TFA is really more of a closing-frontier issue than a drought issue. The states northeast of Pennsylvania manage all of their land via townships. Everywhere else you can get these weird municipal-unincorporated disputes. See also: Walmart locating outside city limits to avoid taxes.
> The pump failed in June, before the system’s planned overhaul. Townspeople were asked to use the “bare minimum” of water — flush the toilets, but don’t water the lawn.
It blows my mind they are using flushing toilets in the desert. Composting toilets are not some new-fangled technology, and require zero water. You live in a desert! Come on!
> “These men were brought in because I had put them on a water restriction schedule,” Pacheco said in an interview. “They are upset they can’t water their lawns while people can’t have water to actually live.”
Watering lawns? In the desert? How is this not illegal? This feels like the entire climate change "controversy" in a nutshell: people so brazenly into the abuse of their own resources that they will fight to continue wasting them until they no longer exist.
> multistory homes with sweeping decks facing Blanca Peak
> The water crisis has forced older residents to contemplate selling their dream homes, where they had planned to retire
The article's framing seems to waver between "how dare you do this to the poor and starving" and "how dare you do this to the older, richer retirees". I'm sure there are people of all kinds affected by the water issue but it's not as simple as the clickbaity title suggests.
> Salina Pacheco, who is the manager of the town water district and training to become a water system operator, knew it was coming. She had been talking to the five-member water board about it for two years and had helped secure a $105,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs to upgrade the water system, which was suffering from “extreme water hammer” because water traveling through the pipes in opposite directions was colliding.
> The pump failed in June, before the system’s planned overhaul.*
You don't have to live far out of town to have no town water. The pipes don't go far out of city/town limits at all.
You always get periods of prolonged drought even in otherwise perfectly reasonable self-sustainable properties.
This isn't some "HAHAHA suck it libertarians" attitude. This is a "anyone who lives slightly outside of town wanting to buy water and being told no" type of situation.
https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/human-rights-water-and-s...
It’s distressing to see human rights violations in the richest country on earth.
Overall it seems tough living around there, large parcels of land were divided and sold 30+ years ago via mail order and land values haven' tracked inflation in a lot of cases. A lot of people moving there for a second chance or fresh start.