Our View - Thursday

Dogs and ponies

Congressional hearing or political circus?

Pueblo will be hosting a congressional field hearing Friday, ostensibly meant to mark the 45th anniversary of the Fryingpan-Arkansas water project. But it also seems to have an ulterior purpose, judging from the panel’s onesided make-up and the fact that it’s been organized at the behest of 3rd District Rep. John Salazar, a Democrat who panders to the anti-Colorado Springs crowd in Pueblo. We worry, therefore, that the hearing could devolve into a forum for airing the usual litany of anti-Colorado Springs complaints.

There are many water projects in the West. Their anniversaries come and go largely unnoticed. Why the chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Water and Power, California Rep. Grace Napolitano, who represents part of Los Angeles County, would choose to celebrate this anniversary, at this particular time, is not too hard to discern. Like a lot of traveling congressional hearings, this one obviously has a political purpose.

Napolitano’s chief of staff, Daniel Chao, confirmed to us that she’s holding the hearing in response to a request from Salazar, who serves with her on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (but does not actually serve on the subcommittee). He also said the selection of witnesses was inclusive and fair, though we know it’s common for the party in control to stack the deck in its favor. Salazar wouldn’t have requested the hearing if he and his allies didn’t see some advantage in it.

Salazar and Rep. Doug Lamborn have rival bills touching on the water dispute between Pueblo and Colorado Springs. Salazar’s bill seems designed to bog down the study of Pueblo Reservoir expansion in unnecessary studies and red tape. It’s a legislative hand grenade, meant to blow up a series of intergovernmental agreements on which regional consensus has painstakingly been built.

Lamborn’s bill simply approves a study of possible reservoir expansion, which would boost storage capacity for Colorado Springs and other project participants, and allows the Bureau of Reclamation to enter into longer-term leasing contracts.

This hearing, depending on how the issues are spun, could help tilt public opinion in Salazar’s favor and lend support to those trying to deny Colorado Springs the full use of our water rights and Fry-Ark assets. That’s why it’s been organized.

The panel is stacked with people hostile to Colorado Springs’ interests. Mayor Lionel Rivera will be testifying, but no other witness will speak on behalf of the people of El Paso County, who have paid more than 70 percent of local project costs, totaling $65 million to date. Pueblo Countians, by contrast, have paid $17.4 million into the project. The people who pay most for Fry-Ark have too little representation, in short, while the anti-Springs contingent, and the people who pay relatively less, are over-represented.

Bill Thiebaut, the grandstanding Pueblo County district attorney who is suing Colorado Springs for alleged water quality violations in Fountain Creek, will testify. As will Wally Stealey, who’s listed in the program as an “Arkansas Valley rancher” but who’s also a political operative who carried water for Pueblo interests on the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District. Another participant, attorney Sandy White, has ties to Denver water attorney Ray Petros, whom the obstructionistin-chief, Pueblo Chieftain Publisher Bob Rawlings, uses as a “water policy advisor.”

We hope Lamborn will help compensate for the imbalance by asking tough and probing questions from behind the dais. We hope he’ll underscore the fact that El Paso County and Colorado Springs shoulder a significant share of project costs, even as entities that contribute far less attempt to limit our access to water we have rights to. As well, if the issue of Fountain Creek water quality comes up, we hope Lamborn will be able to recount the many steps Colorado Springs has taken, and the millions of dollars it’s investing, in sewage treatment and stormwater upgrades.

No one has a greater claim to Fry-Ark project assets, and no one is being more proactive on water quality issues and building regional consensus around win-wins on water, than Colorado Springs. To turn a congressional hearing into another excuse for Springs bashing is a misuse of taxpayer money and congressional staff time. Those hungry for anti-Springs propaganda can get it a lot cheaper by buying a copy of The Pueblo Chieftain.

Perhaps we’ll be surprised and the hearing will serve a broader and beneficial purpose. But we’re betting it’s a political dog-and-pony show. Those wanting to judge for themselves should attend — the hearing begins 9. a.m. Friday at Pueblo Community College’s Fortino Ballroom.

Fast times at Conifer High

Parents of Conifer High School students who were shocked to find photos of pot-smoking and beer-drinking in the yearbook can get their money refunded by the suburban Denver school district. But we would be amazed if that assuages their anger.

The student editors who included the incriminating photos say they did so in order to honestly reflect student life. “Yes, smoking pot and underage drinking is illegal, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, and the point of the yearbook entirely is to cover what happens in the year,” one senior said. “You’d be surprised at how many children at Conifer High School smoke pot. I wanted to push more for a deeper side of Conifer, which, for a lot of students, is drugs and alcohol.”

But since when, we wonder, are students allowed to put anything they want into a yearbook without some judicious editing by the adults ostensibly in charge? And what, we wonder, were teachers and school administrators in Conifer smoking or drinking that would account for this appalling lack of judgment? Where, in short, is the adult supervision?

A refund is the very least parents should expect in response to this obvious case of the lunatics taking over the asylum.