How PAWSD Customers Helped Create a Secure Water Future

The outstanding security of our community's drinking water supply has resulted from many years of thoughtful planning by Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation, careful water conservation by our customers, and past financial support from the San Juan Water Conservancy District.

PAWSD is currently planning to sell the 667-acre Running Iron Ranch, which was purchased in 2008 based on engineering reports as the site for a proposed 35,000 acre-foot reservoir, which would have been about 21 times the size of Lake Hatcher, our primary PAWSD water source.

The purchase was a cooperative effort by PAWSD and the San Juan Water Conservancy District using a $9.2 million loan and a $1 million grant. PAWSD and SJWCD became joint tenants of the property, and PAWSD promised to repay the $9.2 million loan, plus millions of dollars more in interest payments, out of customer fees and monthly rates.

In 2009, the Dry Gulch Reservoir was projected to cost PAWSD residents and businesses $357 million.

The engineering reports convinced a previous PAWSD Board to purchase the Ranch, but the reports did not account for actual PAWSD water demand, water conservation, and improvements to the existing PAWSD system.

This graph, below, compares the inflated water demand projections by Harris Engineering (red line) with actual PAWSD water sales (blue line).

In 2011, the PAWSD Board received a study from a volunteer community study group, and the Board subsequently decided that alternative water system upgrades would serve its district customers in a more cost-effective manner than an expensive reservoir on the Running Iron Ranch.

Click here to download the 2011 final report by the Water Supply Community Work Group.

Many of the system improvements mentioned in the 2011 report have already been made, including the Dutton Ditch Pipeline, the enlargement of Stevens Reservoir, a new pipeline along Jackson Mountain, construction of the San Juan Pumping Station, and enlargement of the Hatcher Treatment Plant. The enlargement of the Snowball Treatment plant is currently underway.

A planned, relatively simple pipeline connecting Stevens Reservoir to Lake Hatcher could triple the raw water available at the Hatcher Treatment Plant, at a low cost.

Thanks to an amazing water conservation effort by Archuleta County residents and businesses since 2001, PAWSD has determined that — rather than continuing to burden its water customers with a financial hardship amounting to more than $500,000 annually, for an oversized reservoir the community does not need — the best decision in 2025 is to sell the Ranch.

Since 2002, PAWSD has sold less than 1,500 acre-feet of treated water annually, and typically less than 1,300 acre-feet.

This amount is a tiny fraction of the raw water available to be treated for our community. PAWSD has diversion water rights — the right to divert water from area rivers and streams — that amount to more than 46,000 acre-feet annually. That's more that 30 times the amount of water we sell to residents and businesses each year. Additionally, our existing reservoirs can store more than 4,000 acre-feet, which is enough to serve District customers for more than two years, even if we received not a single drop of rain or flake of snow for two years.

Despite a growing population in Archuleta County — about 32% growth since 2001, according to the U.S. Census — PAWSD water sales in 2022 were considerably less than in 2001, thanks to water conservation practices by our customers.

The Dry Gulch Reservoir that SJWCD has been planning to construct on the Ranch property would increase the community's water storage from 4,000 acre-feet to 15,000 acre-feet — equal to about 10 years of PAWSD water sales.

PAWSD looks forward to relieving our residential and business customers of a $500,000-per-year financial burden by selling the Running Iron Ranch — the planned site for a reservoir the community doesn't need, cannot afford, and shows no sign of ever being built.

For more information about our secure water future, please download "State of the Water".