Local water politics

Dear Editor,

Wow, what an uproar the latest attempt to provide "good" water has become! Let's see, an initiative petition already filed, another about to be circulated, threats of impeachment for those of us who have voted "wrong."

Our neighbors in Frontier County incited to protest loud and long. There are "experts" in every venue insisting that they have the best solution. What is next?

I ran for council to try to get McCook out of the air base purchase mess. After the prior council purchased the air base, all manner of experts came forth to cry loud and hard that the place was polluted yet none presented proof that their rumors were true. The council could have done a Phase II environmental assessment, yet declined to do so stating a projected cost of $34,000 to $48,000.

Had pollution been found, a good case could have been made for getting out of the purchase contract. If no pollution had been found, we would be drinking the good water by now. As it was, they saved $34,000 and it only cost us $1,000,000.

Then just last week the EPA declared the air base site not to be contaminated. Go figure. An obvious solution is to build a treatment plant and get with treating our present water. My objection to that solution is cost, both for the $10 million expense of construction plus the ongoing operational and maintenance expense estimated in excess of $600,000 per year. Then there is the little matter of diesel oil pollution beneath our water storage tank, which will have to be rebuilt on another site.

Only about $5.0 million. A couple of sharp young men had earlier presented an alternative solution for securing good water from the Ogallala aquifer to the prior council. They rejected the development of a northern well site in favor of buying the air base.

By a majority vote of the present council, the old blueprint for the northern well site was dusted off and City staff sent to negotiate with all the farmers involved. Evidently only three landowners were contacted and two accepted the city's offer to lease their land for exploration and possible well construction.

Their neighbors deemed the accepted offers wholly unacceptable and have since raised a storm of protest. I still feel that the city should continue to negotiate additional land leasing and come up with a solution that is equitable and acceptable to all involved. Most likely a solution acceptable to neighboring landowners would cost considerably more than what is presently offered but even so, the whole project could be completed at much less cost than the treatment option. Enter a disgruntled but clever implement dealer in McCook.

Several years ago when the majority of city voters implemented the sales tax our friend fought the issue long and hard. He got beat. He perceives, and rightly so, that the city sales tax hurts his business.

Adding insult, the sales tax was sold to the public by promising to lower their city property tax. In my opinion farmers already shoulder a majority share of property taxes for supporting our schools. Having to help pay the property tax for property owners in McCook is in their (and my) view unfair.

Payback time. If the farmers can be urged to fight our northern well field and thereby force McCook water users to have hugely higher water bills through treatment, justice will be served.

Hence we see the neighbors filing for feedlot permits that most have no intent to build. Zoning has been raised as another way to prevent us from going north. Now a petition is being circulated to rescind the contracts already completed. It is presented under the guise of allowing the public to vote on either developing the new well field or submitting to higher water bills from treating.

The public would be able to make a good decision if presented good sound numbers projecting the expense of both the north and the south options but those numbers aren't in yet. It looks like they never will be.

For me it is sad that the decision concerning our water future will be based on emotion instead of good solid numbers anchored in sound engineering testing. So it goes in my world of local politics.

Dick Trail,

McCook

City Councilman