HOW DO YOU WANT HUNTSVILLE TO LOOK . . .

CULINARY VIEWS

It is well known that water is critical to development. It is also known that Developers, don’t care where they get it, or how much there really is of this most precious commodity, as long as they can build. Officials over development don’t seem to care as well. More often than anyone will admit, they may eventually benefit in some way as well, which was made obvious by recent decisions made by our own Weber County Commission members, if you’ve been watching. Elected and appointed officials usually have the resources to move away from an area “with a problem”, as well as not worrying about their decisions, since sooner or later they will be out of office and passing the buck onto the next unlucky politician to take the blame or handle the problem. It all leads to fewer watchdogs, or people getting the warnings out over wealth being generated, at the expense of the truth. Money always trumps, as well as a good attorney. And so it goes. But, ny all accounts, the West is currently growing out of its capacity to provide. And no one really knows how much water we have, especially in this Upper Valley Watershed, where most of the water resources originate for a majority of the Wasatch Front, let alone for this Town and Valley. Even though we are “developed almost to capacity within our current Town borders”, our water resource rests firmly on the use of all the water available here . . . or not.

So, once again, the handling of our own Culinary and the PRIVATELY OWNED Secondary Water is absolutely critical, and this can’t be stressed hard enough. Without specified plans being stated for the recent improvements to our culinary system to a capacity of over 700 hook-ups, when there are only about 230 within current Town boundaries, and some 70 outside, several things can be assumed:

1) That the Town is in the water business. The sell-off and profit going towards that $98,000 per household debt load we are currently paying for, and after that -

2) We won’t recognize our Valley for the housing, because we’ve encouraged over 400 more homes onto our water lines.

3) We either annex, or there will be more residents on line OUTSIDE of Huntsville, than there are INSIDE, thereby having more say so on what happens to it, than the residents who really own it, have first rights to it, and initially paid for it.

Aside from the reason given that this number of hookups is more “efficient”, it appears that our system was approved and built for the purpose of making money, or expanding (at who’s benefit?). Meanwhile, several other questions are generated:

1) By the time the Town expands its potential to service, maintain, and repair that many hookups, will we still be making money? Statistics state no.

2) How many developments will the County have approved, and been built, that have tapped into the same resources we are getting Town water from?

3) Have the powers that be, talked to the folks in Idaho, and now even Florida, about what an “aquifer” is? Wells, and run-off, are only as good as the rain and snow we have. This year isn’t looking so good . . .

These are not easy things to assess, let alone decide, but right now, there’s no access to information about the intentions for our drinking water. It would just be nice to know, because -
AS THE WATER GOES, SO GOES THIS TOWN. To his credit, Councilman Gault has made an offer to publish all the information he can find concerning the Culinary Water, (and hopefully the intentions for it?). His assigned duties don’t show Culinary Water, but Councilman Gault is encouraged to follow through with this project. While re-writing myriad Town laws and ordinances, we hope the Council also writes one covering who gets the water FIRST, when we run low or out.

We understand that some out-of-town hookups in developments approved by the County, who were suppose to develop their own Secondary water resources before they were given permission to hook into our Culinary, still have not done so. Some are presently using treated water for landscaping. Rumors they’ve dug 400 ft. down with no luck, have not stopped plans for more expansions on the line as well. While we like these people, we’re not sure this is the way to go about conducting the business, or management of our water resource.

As a reminder: Growth is not always a good thing.