Aurora Water insists it's not buy and dry. I'm skeptical. Some CO Dems crassly hold out on rural broadband for another state enterprise. Early garden notes prior to a few days off.
Aurora's new deal to take water from farms in the Arkansas River watershed is totally, completely, and absolutely NOT a buy and dry operation. Sincerely guys. Honest.
You know what they say about things that are too good to be true?
That is what I was thinking while reading the article linked below about Aurora's new deal to take water out of rural Southeastern Colorado for municipal use.
Quoting the article,
"City of Aurora officials and representatives of C&A Companies — to whom Aurora will lease the land, structures, equipment and water needed to grow crops — insist the latest transaction is not a buy-and-dry. 'We’re infusing $80 million into, essentially, sustaining the local agricultural communities and the products that are going to some of the other businesses and customers from there,' Brown [Aurora Water general manager Marshall Brown] said. 'We’re really infusing stability into the agricultural future of this farming area.'”
Now, in some sense, I think saying that this isn't the usual buy and dry plan does hold some water. The article mentions that the city has done mitigation work like replanting native grasses (to prevent the spread of noxious and often invasive weeds) as well as buying center pivot irrigation systems for some farms. Additionally, this latest deal puts limits on the number of times the city can take water from the farms it purchased rights and the farms get all the water during flush times where Aurora has plenty of its own.
But still, that feeling of too good to be true persisted. I say that because deals like this, when they're newly-inked and everyone is friends with their party manners on display, don't always stay that way.
If friendships and marriages are tried in times of stress, so too water agreements. And while everyone's happy and friends now, wait til a few dry years test this out. Wait til some mitigation is "forgotten". Wait til the need for water is high for everyone.
Will this be a great thing for all concerned with no downsides then?
If nothing else, I hope the farmers that sold their rights read the agreement carefully. More details below.
https://sentinelcolorado.com/metro/aurora-80-million-farm-water-purchase-from-arkansas-valley-no-buy-and-dry/
Pardon some cynicism, but I think the Democrats on the Joint Technology Committee are holding up a bipartisan effort to settle fees to use state rights of way because they want the money to be in an enterprise.
Thus it will be enshrined in law and above any sort of limit on how much can be collected.
Living in a small town in a rural area, I cannot express well how thankful I am to have broadband internet where I live. I am especially so when I note that just a small town over, there is none.
I have been following the story about CDOT and their exorbitant prices to use the public right of way along their roads to lay fiberoptic cable. In some cases, this high cost is delaying and/or making those that would bring fiber to small towns (and the internet with it) for some time now. See my earlier post linked first below for more if you need it.
I was glad to see a bipartisan bill, therefore, that would settle it out and hopefully get things moving so small towns and rural communities could get high speed internet and the opportunities that come with it. That bill is linked second below.
I kept watching, and watching, and waiting, and watching for that bill to come to committee so I could post and then email/testify, but it seemed like it never would.
And then I read the article linked third below and I think I now know why. There are some people on the Joint Technology Committee that do not want to take the approach in this bill.
They want the money from the leasing of rights of way to be in a state enterprise. You know, the government-run "business" that can collect fees without ever needing to worry about TABOR. The kind of thing that can carry on indefinitely, collecting up money that it can spend with little in the way of limit in time or amount.
This, I think, is the main hold up. You will see other rationales given in the article by a couple committee members, but I've lived on this earth long enough to know how politicians work. They smell money and want it, even if that pinches someone--PARTICULARLY if that pinches someone that won't ever be a threat to their political career.
I wrote the open email to them and the sponsors of SB24-091 and included it below the links.
Some fees are okay by me. Reasonable fees with reasonable limits are fine.
Fees that prevent the extension of broadband to smaller parts of this state because some Front Range politicians see money in it, is not. That is beyond crass opportunisim.
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/be-careful-what-you-do-what-you-practice?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-091
https://tsscolorado.com/legislators-at-odds-on-broadband-right-of-way-fees/
An open letter to the sponsors of SB24-091, Rights-of-Way Permits for Broadband Deployment, and the members of the Joint Technology Committee
Hello to all,
My name is Cory Gaines and I'm a resident of Logan County, CO. I am one of a very few lucky people to live in a town where I can get broadband internet, but I know many in locations similar to mine are not so fortunate.
Broadband internet to me and those who are geographically situated similarly to me presents economic opportunity and growth. It might be something that people (and lawmakers) along the Front Range take for granted, but I want you to think about what your life would look like with either dial up or perhaps no internet.
Without broadband, your educational/enrichment opportunities are narrowed.
Without broadband, potential access to jobs that are full time with benefits is narrowed.
Without broadband, there is less economic growth. There are those that might want to live in a small town and work remotely for both the culture and the lower property values, but currently can't because they cannot work remotely without high speed internet.
When there are bills hat I might want to support, I add them to a list and check in every few days. I have watched SB24-091 for a few weeks now wondering when and if it would ever get a hearing because I wanted to support it.
Then I read in the article (linked below) this morning that it keeps getting tabled.
And I think I know why. It's money.
It's money that the members of the Joint Technology Committee want to enshrine in yet another government enterprise. It's money that these same members wish to make exempt from any sort of limit.
I personally have no issue with charging companies to lay fiber optic cable in rights of way along public roads. But you all need to note a couple things. One, some communities are so small that the profit motive alone is not enough to get the cable out, thus anything that makes it too costly is effectively preventing an extension of high speed internet. Two, Front Range politicians who see dollar signs holding up opportunity like this so the state can enshrine high fees and collect without limit is the very definition of crass.
Put reasonable fees into the law and let's all move on.
Cory
Related (and late to posting):
I am often asked whether and if I ever get a reply to my open letters. I don’t often. But I did on this one. I wrestled with whether to include this because I didn’t ask the legislator specifically for permission to post this, but fairness seems to me to dictate a need to offer the reply I got because it does make some legitimate points.
I will therefore split the baby. I will put up the following as counterpoint to my original email and not tell you who its from save that it’s from a member of the JTC.
“The right of way is free for public utilities, but we can't set a precedent for free access to things that are not [public utillities]. I don't want to disincentivize private broadband expansion, but I also don't believe that these companies should be able to get something for nothing. Especially if they don't provide a public service. At this point, private companies are expecting the state to provide not just low cost access, but free maintenance of these cable pipelines into the future. We're already offering them incredibly affordable access rates and now they want more for less. This is where I start to bristle a little. There is a happy medium to be reached which is what the JTC bill is looking to achieve. Private companies can still get what they need to expand their reach, and their business potential, at an affordable and realistic price point. We're working to finalize a compromise bill and it should be ready soon.”
Notes from my garden startup so far ...
This will be the last post of the day and the last one for a few days. Spring is a busy time and it's also a busy time as a teacher. I need some time to catch up.
In the meantime, though, I wanted to share some notes from the early bit of garden start up. It is early, but it's not too early for infrastructure/planning/material siting (and it's also apparently not too early for some of my plants to start growing).
I decided this year to get rid of the last vestiges of grass. I may eventually start carving out some beds and put in more fruit trees, but for now, the plan is to replace my turf with a "bee lawn", a mix of some low-water turf, clover, and wildflowers. My hope is to have a patch of plants that attracts and supports pollinators, and that needs no supplemental water except perhaps for lengthy periods of 100+ degree days.
The issue I face is in soil prep. The lawn sits in literally about an inch of topsoil and then its clay. Thick, sticky, heavy clay that really could only grow bricks.
There are lots of ways to replace the lawn. I could kill it with chemical and then seed into that. Thing is, the lawn as it is now is lumpier and harder than an old hotel mattress and if I'm going to do a new lawn, I might as well fix that.
I could cut the turf and then either give it away and truck in new dirt to the thickness desired, or I could cut and flip the turf keeping its inch of top soil which I could then cover with more soil. This requires someone with a pickup and puts a whole lot of labor right at the start of May and that's when I'm really busy as a teacher.
I decided to go with a plan that would only require my car and could be done in stages so I could do some of it now while I have Spring Break. That means smothering the lawn with a layer of cardboard, then covering it with new soil.
In about a year, the existing turf will be dead, the cardboard will be mush or on its way, and the bee lawn will have inches of topsoil with lots of good organics in it. Plush and soft.
In screenshot 1 you can see the halfway point on my little 22 x 30 foot patch. I put down a layer of cardboard and covered that with tiled bags of topsoil. In looking back and adding up time, wear and tear on my body carting that many bags, and the cost, I think I would do this differently in the future.
I think I would be more inclined to put off the work and do it all in one go with a sod cutter. I'd say I'll get it right next time, but I'm fresh out of lawn now so ...
Anyway, when it's closer to sowing time, I'll pop the bags, rake it out and get to broadcasting. More updates on this as the season progresses. I'm excited to see it.
In other news, I know it feels early, but it is actually time to start prepping some crops. Around the middle of March, soil temps near me are in the high 30's and low 40's which is just about right for taters and oats (oats grown for oats and not forage).
So I am starting to chit my potatoes (screenshot 2), and I planted my oats (screenshot 3--the groats are circled in red). If you look back at screenshot 1, you'll see the grain bed for the oats in the foreground. It's strip of dirt in front of the lawn. More land with oats this year will, I hope, mean more oats for eating.
Lastly, it is not too early for some plants to start breaking dormancy. My honeyberries (a plant from northern Japan/Siberia--Colorado's Eastern Plains are on the edge of being too warm for them interestingly) are actually starting to not just bud out and/or hit "green tip", but the buds are opening and they're growing new shoots!
Screenshot 4 shows one of the honeyberries (they're only a year old so they're tiny still). In the lower bit of the frame I circled a new shoot coming out of the crown and up further up I circled a bud that is already partway open.
Given their heritage and the fact that, when they're old enough to do it, they make fruit that's ready about the same time as strawberries (early June roughly), I'm going to figure this isn't a mistake and they know what they're doing. What could I say anyway? Like some of my students, plants don't always listen to reason.
That's it on the garden for now. I have some stuff starting indoors which will move out to the cold frame and beds soon (cauliflower, broccoli, onion, shallot, leeks), but it is definitely too early for them.
If you have stuff to share, please do! I'd enjoy reading over my break.
Back at it in a few days.