Re: Dec. 26 editorial.
The value given the conservation easement on the land of Rocky Ford hay farmer Timothy Crow was correct. It was based on the work of Leo Eisel, an employee of the engineering firm of Brown and Caldwell, internationally recognized for its assessments of water values worldwide.
In an effort to establish an honest value of the irrigation water in the Lower Arkansas Valley and participate in a pilot program being offered by Great Outdoors Colorado to preserve the irrigated farming in Otero County, the county hired Brown and Caldwell to do the assessment. The values were then sent to GOCO for approval.
GOCO subsequently accepted the values and approved a $1 million grant to place conservation easements on as many farms as possible. Otero County then announced the project and began accepting offers, instructing the applicants to hire their own appraisers, and provided a list of local appraisers licensed by the state. As it turned out, only one appraiser was willing and able to do the work. This person carefully incorporated the Eisel report in the appraisals to develop values. The easement documents began to arrive in GOCO offices and everything went well until a faction in the system realized the value of the shares of water being preserved was effectively going to dry up the water market.
GOCO at that point hired an appraiser from another part of the state to reappraise the easements, who stated it would be difficult to reduce the value of the original appraisal to the desired figure but he would see what he could do. It is a fact that a hired appraiser given pre-determined value figures cannot be objective, but he satisfied the powers in charge.
The result of this miscarriage of justice resulted in the complete ruination of the original appraiser’s reputation and the rejection of all of its work, whether water or development appraisals. The adage “Tell a lie long enough and often enough, it will become true” applies here.
Lower Arkansas Valley rancher J.D. Wright is a member of the Olney-Boone Conservation District’s Board of Supervisors.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit or check out our for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
