Category: 2025 November Election

#ColoradoRiver Continues to Bring Unlikely Parties Together at the Colorado River Water Users Association — Daniel Anderson (Getches-Wilkinson Center) #CRWUA2025 #COriver #aridifcation

Image by Lex Padilla

Click the link to read the article on the Getches-Wilkinson Center website (Daniel Anderson):

December 29, 2025

The Colorado River Water Users Association annual conference met in Las Vegas [December 16-18, 2025]. Each year, over a thousand government officials, members of the press, municipal water district leaders, water engineers, ranchers, and tribal members meet to discuss the management of the mighty Colorado River. Hanging over the three-day conference was a stalemate between the upper and lower basin states over how to manage the Colorado River after current operational guidelines expire at the end of 2026.

Throughout the conference, the states’ inability to reach a consensus deal produced ripple effects. The stalemate held back progress on both near term shortage concerns (experts predict that Lake Powell will be only 28% full at the end of the ’25-’26 water year) and long-range planning, such as the development of the next “Minute” agreement between the United States and Mexico.

The closing act of CRWUA 2025 was an orderly (and familiar) report from each of the basin states’ principal negotiators that their state is stretched thin but remains committed to finding a consensus agreement. This final session had no discussion or Q&A. The basin states now have until February 14th to provide the Bureau of Reclamation with their consensus deal, which would presumably be added to an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) draft that is expected to be released in early January. With time running short, many worry that public participation in the EIS process – vital to informed decision-making – will be greatly reduced.

Still, as Rhett Larson of Arizona State University said on the first day of the conference, “Desert rivers bring people together.” Tribal governments continue to innovate in the areas of conservation and storage, even in spite of ongoing challenges to meaningful access of federally reserved tribal water rights. For instance, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, or CRIT, shared news of a Resolution and Water Code recently passed by their Tribal Council which work together to recognize the Colorado River’s personhood under Tribal law. This provides CRIT with a holistic framework for on-reservation use and requires the consideration of the living nature of the Colorado River in off-reservation water leasing decisions. John Bezdek, who represented CRIT at the conference, put it this way: “If laws are an expression of values, then this tribal council is expressing to the world the importance of protecting and preserving the lifeblood of the Colorado River.” Among others, Celene Hawkins of The Nature Conservancy and Kate Ryan of the Colorado Water Trust also shared about the unique, and often unlikely, partnerships formed to protect stream flows and the riparian environment across the Colorado River basin.

Notwithstanding the basin states’ current deadlock, one theme rang true at CRWUA 2025: Despite the dire hydrologic and administrative realities facing decision-makers today, the Colorado River continues to bring unlikely parties together.

Map credit: AGU

Unofficial election results: Town sales tax increase passes — The #PagosaSprings Sun

Near Pagosa Springs. Photo credit: Greg Hobbs

Click the link to read the article on the Pagosa Springs Sun website (Randi Pierce). Here’s an excerpt:

November 6, 2025

The unofficial results of Tuesday’s election are in, with Town of Pagosa Springs voters voting in favor of a 1 percent sales tax rate increase for sewerage and wastewater reuse facilities beginning Jan. 1, 2026. The following vote totals were accurate as of late Wednesday morning, Nov. 5. Election results will remain unofficial until Nov. 26, which is the deadline for county canvass boards to complete the canvass and submit the official election abstract to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

“The voters confirmed loud and clear that we need to fix our ailing sewer collection and forced main system and to provide a long-term solution,” Pagosa Springs Town Manager David Harris wrote in a statement to The SUN. “We appreciate those who understand the necessity of this system and how it relates to the economic vitality of our community and region.”

According to the ballot issue, the increase is to “construct, reconstruct, improve, repair, better, extend, operate and maintain sewerage and wastewater reuse facilities to serve the town, including facilities of the Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District.

Town approves taking proposed sales tax increase to voters — The #PagosaSprings Sun

Near Pagosa Springs. Photo credit: Greg Hobbs

Click the link to read the article on the Pagosa Springs Sun website (Derek Kutzer). Here’s an excerpt:

August 27, 2025

This November, voters in the Town of Pagosa Springs will decide if they want to raise the sales tax within town limits to fund critical sewer repairs and a wastewater treatment plant. On Aug. 19, the Pagosa Springs Town Council approved the second reading of an ordinance calling for the coordinated election and setting the language appearing on the ballot…

The town’s Public Works Department, in conjunction with an assessment by Roaring Fork engineering, has concluded that the overall system is rated as “poor” to “fair,” with the challenges including an aging pipe system (50 years of age on average) with one-third of the total system rated as needing “critical repairs or failing.” Most of the challenges stem from the 500-foot elevation gain the sewage must travel before it arrives for treatment at PAWSD’s Vista plant, the website indicates. The town has estimated that it will cost between $80 million and $100 million to make the system healthy and efficient, with $15 million needed “immediately” to repair the aging pipes just to keep the current system operational. After considering other options to fund the needed repairs and upgrades, such as raising rates on wastewater customers or raising property taxes, both town staff and the council determined that the sales tax option was “the most efficient” way to obtain the funding needed. Town Manager David Harris has stated that a 1 percent sales tax increase within the town would generate an estimated $3.6 million in the first year and take an estimated 25 years to generate all the funds necessary to complete the project, if the town decides to build its own treatment plant.