Another side to the Gunnison ditch system story

Editor:

Western Colorado University Assistant Professor Brooke Zanetell and I agree that more of the public should attend Gunnison City Council meetings if they want to be aware of what our city management is doing. I have been regularly attending these meetings for the last several years. The council meets twice monthly. So far as I recall, professor Zanetell hasn’t been present at any of the presentations given by the current Director of Public Works, Pete Rice, or his predecessor regarding the ditch system.

I’m concerned with several of Professor Zanetell’s statements in her recent opinion piece published in the Gunnison Country Times. Zanetell interprets a quote she attributes to director Rice as “code” for piping ditch water to future new developments, excluding current city users. I have never heard anything like this in any of the ditch presentations I have heard at city council meetings I’ve attended since 2020.

Zanetell mentions a “2020 Growth Study” where she says Gunnison is projected to see a “Full Build” three times it current size. I looked at all the minutes from all the 2020 city council meetings and I can find no mention of that. The only reference that I can find to “full build” refers to the bankrupt Gunnison Rising effort.

Zanetell seems to believe the city plans to pipe ditch water to the “east, south, north and west of Gunnison.” The ditch system is gravity flow system that moves water primarily north to south. I’ve also looked at the 2020-2026 city budgets where ditches are mentioned (the general budget for ditch maintenance is approximately $230,000) and there is no mention of piping any ditches. There was one mention in the Jan. 10, 2023, city council meeting of replacing some ditch piping under city streets where it had failed.

I love our ditches. I irrigate my lawn with the water from them. When I was helping our son on the ranch for several years in the 2010s, I recall a 10-day water call when we were experiencing extreme drought during the summer of 2012. Those water rights were 1885 – five years junior to the city’s main ditch. While I do agree that the ditches help to replenish the aquifer, my observation was the water we used flowed through the ranch just like it does here at my house. Most of the water did its job and headed downstream.

I want to protect and use the water we get from the Gunnison River, Carbon Creek, Ohio Creek and all the historic ditches that run from those water sources. I just don’t see the city planning to pipe all the water the city gets through the city and to new developments as so strongly stated by professor Zanetell. I will appreciate any further evidence she may provide in that regard.

Joe Dix

Gunnison