2 - FUTURE TIMES - MAY 1992 D fr KIN Without some reasonable rules there would be chaos. and all of us would lose our valued freedoms. Real freedom can exist only if there are reasonable rules of passage and crossing. So our present challenge is to begin deciding which issues are troublesome enough to merit reason- able rules. We need to think together, but there’s a catch—we each have to find the way and make the time to help decide. We can’t depend on someone else to get us there. It’s easy to be bashful or lazy. And there are some very good HEDfrm 1 Much of the growth within the overall valley will occur outside Town boundaries. Not only is there much private land along the paved road (from the post boxes almost to the Forest b0undary above Castleton), but there are more than 5,000 acres of State Land, all of which are intended for sale and development. What cumulative impact will all this development have on our water? Our quality of life? All of these areas can presently be developed much more intensively than can the Town of Castle Valley. Do we sewer system, so we will probably keep our septic systems but develop a Town water supply. Continuing growth and development in and above our commu- nity will necessitate this sooner rather than later. ROADS: To pave or not to pave will continue to be the question. Will we choose dust or a vastly more expensive road budget? We are currently spending nearly all our community finances on road maintenance. When the other 200 to 300 families have moved in, how will we fund the necessary increased grading costs? Wash-board on dirt roads is a product of traffic. Three times more traffic will require much more road work. We will also have to begin grading ALL the roads. So far, many roads have no one living at the reasons for not getting involved. It tends to be hard, complicated, confusing work at times, with no road map to and join in the development craze? Or follow. And often your neighbors get a bit suspicious of you for doing it, and there are no guarantees that it will totally solve the problem. It just means 300% increase guaranteed by our current Zoning Ordinance? LONG-TERM WATER SUP- far ends. This summer will change that, and these are the most difficult roads to PLY: How much water is available? grade. doing the best you can and hoping it Last fall the Town initiated a water will make things less troublesome in the long run. Who or what has the power to take my dream away? Perhaps my own indifference, apathy, reticence, inventory (called a water budget) with arbitrary conduct, or sloth. Who will want to abandon our Zoning Ordinance do we want to keep our growth to the the Utah Division of Water Rights and the State Geologic Survey to determine how much water actually is available in the drainage system of Castle Valley. protect my dream if I'm not willing to The study will take a year, and will evaluate water from 6 wells located in do it? Nobody. different sections of the valley. — Cris Coffey /_. WINDY DAY Windy day windy day. , The wind blows so hard Blows leaves all over Blow wind Blow wind until you wish to stop. / CV ZONING AND LAWS: The Town of Castle Valley presently has a zoning ordinance and an ordinance regulating outdoor lights. The zoning us. The study’s object is to tell us how much development is possible before ordinance provides some basic guide: we begin running out of water. Since the Town holds some of the more will occur: how many and what kind of buildings we want in this valley. POA COVENANTS WOULD ALLOW A SUPER 8 MOTEL TO BE BUILT secure (senior) water rights in the basin, thanks in part to the work of John Groo, we may be able to influence any development threatening to our water supplies. What about the quality of our water? Everything that goes down a drain or toilet in our entire water shed will eventually reach our aquifers. Human waste is not nearly as serious a threat as are all the detergents, draino, */ roads running across peoples’ property. Our water comes from snow melt in Miner’s Basin, Bachelor’s Basin, and possibly the mesas on either side of and other common household chemi- Poem and drawing by Olivia Kulander We don’t even know where some of the roads are! Some roads like Keogh and Holyoak totally deviate from their legally platted easements. What can we do with these? And some other roads have encroachments both ways—some fences in the roads, some lines for how growth and development HERE. Without our zoning ordinance, we would be entirely vulnerable to any project anyone might dream up. Our zoning ordinance should work for all of us. It should allow us to do the things we want to do as a community, while protecting us from developments we decide are detrimental to our quality of life. If the zoning ordinance doesn’t cals we so casually pour down the work for us, we have the power to change it. drain. Of course, there are deeper aquifers beneath us, on which we might rely, but this means we would have 500' wells instead of the 100 to 200' at PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION (POA): The FDA is legally in force until the end of 1998. After that it could be either discontinued or present. reinstated for ten-year intervals, It's very likely that the Town of Castle Valley will need a municipal water supply as the shallower aquifers dependent on majority vote. Until 1998, the covenants are supposedly binding but have never been enforced. TOWN FINANCES: Those of us who live here now are presently being become polluted. A culinary water supply is much cheaper to build than a