{"id":98278,"date":"2018-08-26T19:44:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T01:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-to-reopen-water-dock-to-new-customers\/"},"modified":"2018-08-26T19:44:28","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T01:44:28","slug":"durango-to-reopen-water-dock-to-new-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-to-reopen-water-dock-to-new-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango to reopen water dock to new customers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"City
City of Durango will start accepting new water dock customers Sept. 4.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The city of Durango will start accepting new customers at its water dock on Sept. 4, reversing a controversial decision that left many La Plata County residents in a pinch for water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of the moratorium was to get us through peak demand season with irrigation,\u201d City Manager Ron LeBlanc said Thursday. \u201cWe managed through that through an extreme drought and no residential had any restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May, the city of Durango cut off the water dock on the south end of town to new customers. LeBlanc said at the time if the city took on more customers, it might have to enact water restrictions for its residents.<\/p>\n

But many La Plata County residents in drier parts of the county were upset with the decision.<\/p>\n

They argued the city of Durango uses about 3.2 million to 3.9 million gallons of water a day, whereas the current 1,220 water dock customers use only about 3.8 million gallons of water a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I go into town, I have to cringe when I see people washing their driveways down and doing things that aren\u2019t really a logical use of the water in this area,\u201d Barb McCall, who lives near Kline, said in a previous interview.<\/p>\n

LeBlanc said Thursday the city\u2019s obligation is to serve residents in its \u201cwater service area.\u201d<\/p>\n

With 24,242 customers, the city\u2019s water service area is the largest in the county. The second largest is Lake Durango with 2,800 customers and third largest is Animas Water Co. with 2,720 customers.<\/p>\n

But LeBlanc said taking into account customers the city serves outside its service area, that number dwarfs both Lake Durango and Animas Water Co.<\/p>\n

The city has 1,200 customers at the water dock, and an additional 200 customers outside the service area. At a rate of 2.3 people per household, LeBlanc said that\u2019s about 3,200 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would make us the second largest water provider in addition to the first,\u201d LeBlanc said. \u201cWe\u2019re providing more water outside the city limits than any of these water providers within their service area.\u201d<\/p>\n

LeBlanc said four customers of the water dock are professional water haulers that can provide water to people outside the city, though many county residents say this is an expensive route.<\/p>\n

Instead of residential water restrictions, the city worked with the top 20 water users to cut back consumption 10 percent.<\/p>\n

But LeBlanc said there needs to be a better plan going forward for future drought years. He encouraged other water providers in the county to build their own water docks.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t come in here and throw a hand grenade. Put in a water dock,\u201d he said. \u201dA hand grenade is not productive, a water dock is. Why should someone in Marvel come to the city for water when they\u2019re passing 40 other water providers?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayfield, Ignacio and Oxford all have water docks. And there are plans to put in some water docks on the west side of the county, which has historically been plagued by water shortages.<\/p>\n

Ed Zink, a rancher in the Animas Valley, was highly critical of the city\u2019s decision to cut off new customers from its water dock. He said the Animas Valley Water Co. was going to provide a million gallons a month to help.<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t necessary with the city announcing the water dock will take on new customers Sept. 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably dodged a bullet this year,\u201d Zink said. \u201cBut we need to start a conversation together to try and be better prepared for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

received flak for refusing new permits during drought<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[950,475,294],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-durango","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-water-supply"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98278"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}