Colorado Water
Not everyone is happy in Animas-LaPlata land. Here's an opinion piece, written by Phil Doe, the chairman of the Citizens Progressive Alliance, from today's Rocky Mountain News [January 12, 2005, "Speakout: You, I will foot Animas-La Plata bill"]. He writes, "For instance, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico inserted a rider that forgives any repayment from Animas-La Plata project backers of $162 million in recent cost overruns, thus ending the Reagan-era policy requiring developers to pay a significant portion of any federal water project. Former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the Animas-La Plata project's chief sugar daddy, had already forgiven all but a sliver of the original cost estimate of $338 million in earlier legislation. The Domenici and Campbell giveaways of public money to Animas-La Plata special interests have been accommodated through the massive fiction that the project is going to cost a piddling $500 million. That's a lot to you and me, but not to the folks who can pass a $388 billion spending bill without reading it. The truth is the $500 million merely covers the construction costs of the project. Missing from this calculation is the interest taxpayers will have to pay on this debt over the expected 100-year life of the project. It will be in the billions of dollars. Also missing is the $50 million guesstimated for the Gallup Pipeline and $13 million for high-capacity power lines to the project pumping plant in Durango. Domenici has already tabbed us for the former, and the feds are laundering the latter so that it doesn't show up on project books."
5:41:18 AM 
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