People for Wise Water Planning records, 1964-1997

In 1989 a group of local residents in Cache County, Utah organized People for Wise Water Planning (PWWP), an organization which opposed the creation of a proposed water conservancy district (WCD) in Cache Valley. PWWP was officially organized on February 23, 1989 with Alice Lindahl as director, Karen Fisher as secretary, and Stephen Flint as treasurer. PWWP opposed the creation of a Cache WCD for various reasons, including that the PWWP did not believe there was water crisis in Cache County, it saw no need for the countywide boundaries advocated by the WCD, it believed that the WCD would not solve any present or future problems but instead would cause environmental damage, the WCD would have the power to increase taxes, and that WCDs, in general, were undemocratic and unaccountable to the people they purported to represent and serve.

Once the PWWP was officially organized, its members printed and distributed flyers, sent out monthly newsletters, attended and spoke at city council meetings, wrote letters-to-the-editor of local newspapers, staged protests, and engaged in other similar acts to oppose the formation of the district. The PWWP also hired a lawyer to combat the formation of the WCD.

A WCD in Utah is created by collecting signatures of property owners. Each taxing district, cities and unincorporated areas, need a certain percentage of signatures that equals a certain percentage of taxable property. In order to defeat a WCD district signatures of property owners must also be collected, but they must equal a greater amount of the taxable property than those in favor. Once enough signatures have been obtained to create a district, those opposed had only a limited time to gather enough signatures to defeat the district.

On Dec. 6, 1989, the Herald Journal reported that those in favor of creating a Cache WCD had obtained the needed signatures to begin officially organizing the WCD and later that week, the Cache County Council voted to endorse the formation of the Cache WCD. However, the organization of the WCD slowed in response to criticism by Cache County Attorney Gary McKean, who stated that he would not give legal counsel to the pro-WCD organizers because WCDs, although legal institutions, were not led by democratically elected officials (Herald Journal, 22 January 1990).

Throughout the following months, the PWWP gathered signatures in opposition to establishing a WCD. In early February 1990, Representative Evan Olsen, R-Young Ward, filed House Bill 389 which sought to increase the number of signatures opposition parties needed to halt the establishment of a WCD. However, after coming under intense criticism, the bill was withdrawn by Olsen at the end of February.

Finally, in the summer of 1990, Judge Gordon Low dismissed the pro-district petition because the petitioners changed the proposed WCD boundaries after the petition had been submitted.