Round Mountain Water:
“Something Really Bad Is Going to Happen”
No More New Water Taps After December 31st?

by George Gramlich
We have been remiss with not getting into this situation sooner and we apologize for that. And it is a big deal. As most everybody knows, the Round Mountain Water and Sanitation District (RMWSD) has had some problems the last few years with their wells and the waste treatment plant. We’ve seen some information on how they need to replace the waste treatment plant and that they don’t have the money to do it. So we asked Dave Schneider, RMWSD Operations Manager, to drop by and get us up-to-date on the issues.
RMWSD was formed in 1969 and covers 6,485 acres. It covers the towns of Silver Cliff and Westcliffe. The District services a population of around 1,450. It has 26 miles of water mains and 18 miles of sewer mains. The District has a full-time staff of six, servicing 685 water taps and 650 sewer taps. The vast majority of its income comes from the monthly water and sewer tap fees which are about $85 per residential entity. Businesses pay based on how much water they use with regards to the residential rate. Only about 7 percent of its income comes from property taxes.
RMWSD has had an issue with one of its old wells essentially becoming non-productive. They have successfully borrowed money and received grants to drill a new well and install new water meters and are in the process of doing that (to the tune of $2.1 Million.) Another issue is that The Colorado State Division of Water Rescourses, due to a lawsuit by some local people, has mandated that they create a water storage reservoir above the new well with will cost $2.3 Million and they don’t have the money for that. So that is a pretty big problem.
The real big problem, however, is the waste treatment plant. Dave said that parts of the current plant was under designed when it was built in 1975. The soil beds, where the treated wastewater is percolated into the ground have all failed and the plant is totally out of compliance with a whole bunch of state and federal regulations. In 2016, RMWSD started the approval process with the state and engineering design effort to build a new plant. However, over the years the CDPHE and the feds have constantly been upgrading the design criteria for the plant causing delay after delay. In 2017, RMWSD submitted a design to CDPHE for a new plant with an estimated cost of $6 Million. CDPHE has kept changing the goal posts since that submission and now they are looking at $14 Million to build a new plant due to the new mandates required by CDPHE. Dave reviewed several of the effluent and mineral/chemical discharge requirements with us noting that they were total overkill for a small rural district. (What this is folks is bureaucratic green freaks at the state and federal levels creating totally unrealistic criteria for these plants that poor, rural communities cannot afford. These unfunded mandates are killing rural America towns and counties. Just look at this disaster and our landfill battles with the state.)
RMWSD has grants and a loan commitment for $6 Million. Dave estimates that the residential monthly fee now at around $85 would have to go to around $125 to be able to pay off the loan part of the $6 Million. That’s a pretty big increase. The problem is they now need another $8 Million to do the job and Dave says it has to be in grants as increasing the monthly fee’s any more than the proposed $125 figure would be too much. RMWSD also has no reserves left after all the engineering and other costs incurred during this saga.
Dave said they have just about exhausted every avenue to get the money. The feds told him to re-apply for a grant with the new design, but RMWSD would have to give back the existing loan/grant package that they have for $6 Million in order to apply. However, the feds are guaranteeing NOTHING and Dave says if they drop the $6 Million loan guarantee they will never get it back. So that is in limbo.
RMWSD is trying to get the state to relax some of the new waste treatment regulations so they can build a cheaper plant but there has not been much progress.
They have reached out to all our federal politicians with basically no results yet except that our U.S, Senator Bennet said he would try to attach an amendment to “some” bill this year for the $8 Million but there is no guarantee there either.
So where are we now? If nothing changes and they don’t get the grant money, with regard to new water taps, Dave says they will issue these until the end of the year and after that NO MORE NEW TAPS! Plus, those issued before the end of the year must complete construction within one year. If not done, RMWSD will cancel the tap and return the tap fee. Dave noted that the waste treatment plant can continue to operate but it is totally out of compliance with state and federal regulations and the state could fine them. The bad odor (and I mean BAD) coming from there for years would still be there, discomforting all the neighbors. So, no grant moolah means no more water taps for Silver Cliff and Westcliffe and the state might fine RMWSD to death or try to shut it down. (The libs in Denver doing what they do best, harassing rural Colorado into oblivion.)
This is not just a RMWSD problem Dave said. RMWSD is just one of the early rural plants to run afoul of these insane regulations and bureaucracy and that virtually every rural wastewater treatment plant in the state will, in the not-too-distant future, be subjugated to — impossible costs to satisfy the environmentalists running this show. RMWSD needs a solution now but who will stand up is unknown. (Colorado needs one too and real soon.)