Colorado City Metropolitan District
Written by Josiah Thomas, EPA Region 8 Category 2 Specialist
Colorado City's history is plagued by poorly planned infrastructure built in the 1960s and 1970s with subpar materials, leading to expensive maintenance. Upgrades to the water treatment plant in 2007 failed to resolve Lake Beckwith's water quality issues. Due to old infrastructure, stricter quality standards, and unexpected expenses, water costs have risen. To cover these costs, Colorado City has increased water fees, tap fees, and accessibility of service fees. Despite past increases, rates are still below recommendations made 14 years ago.
Because of DBP issues, the system received an enforcement order that they needed help handling. So, the dam needs a ~$4.0 million fix. Future water quality improvements, costing ~$15 million, include Dissolved Air Filtration and Granulated Activated Carbon systems. Also, rates and revenues must increase to help handle the debt servicing. The final issue to address is the public acceptance of significant rate increases, which have not occurred since 2010. They also need assistance creating PER's and PNAs with their engineers.
To help the system with their engineering reports, I have been involved in multiple meetings to help them organize their workload and processes regarding engineering reports. To help stabilize the system and ensure compliance, I suggested that the system pursue funding from SRF, USDA, DOLA, and several other sources to ease the financial burden on the system. In addition to these funding applications, I suggested the system upload its financial and asset information to RevPlan to help prove to the state and other primacies their readiness to proceed and to ensure a stable future for the system. Finally, I suggested that the system have regular board meetings regarding the issues they are facing and that they create a brochure to help ease the risk of public outcry.
The first solution achievable was the implementation of RevPlan. They are a sort of pilot program that proves to the state that RevPlan works in stabilizing system resources for the future and helps them receive funding. Using RevPlan and an idea of how much the projects would cost, we implemented a substantial rate increase to help service the debt and provide enough revenue for the system to have nine months of O&M expenses ready to handle any emergency thrown their way. To augment this, we created a brochure to help educate the public on the increased work and the increased rates. Beyond this, I have been helping with every step to procure funding to return to compliance, as well as engineering help and other forms of help related to the project.
Savings: $20,000