by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
We heard some rumors lately that the Round Mountain Water and Sanitation District (RMWSD) was extending the new water tap halt till 2024. That would be bad news for the two towns but would have affected the Town of Silver Cliff a lot more. So, we contacted RMWSD to see what the skinny was. Dave Schneider, the District Manager, was kind enough to spend some time with us to get the facts and there could be a problem.
If you recall, the District’s lagoon-based waste treatment system is out of compliance with state requirements and is barely functioning. The District has been doing everything they can to keep it going until a replacement can be put in place but there is only so much that they are allowed to do.
When they were informed of the price tag on a new mechanical treatment system which would be to satisfy the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s insanely ridiculous specifications, the cheapest cost they could come up with was around $14 MILLION!!! Based on the District’s size and demographics, that was clearly out of the question.
So, what did Dave do? He started researching a couple of years ago and discovered a process pioneered by a Denver company called “electro-coagulation” (EC). This simple method of cleaning water involves running the effluent through a large battery-type box with metal plates in it that has an electric current running through it. The current causes the particles, minerals, and chemicals to coagulate and then settle into a collection area. This simple low-cost process works amazingly well. Dave started partnering with that company and a college in Denver to test the new treatment process with samples of the District’s effluent. The results were very promising.
Dave also visited a town in Oklahoma that has been using this sewage treatment system very successfully for years to see how a large full-scale operation works. The effectiveness of treatment and the low operating costs make it an ideal system to replace the existing wastewater treatment system.
During Dave’s research, he has been in constant contact with CDPHE and after a little push back in the beginning, they have become quite interested. (Note: There are dozens of other small county and town waste treatment systems that are out of compliance in Colorado and they are in the same boat. Namely, there is NO WAY for them to cough up the mega bucks needed to put in a traditional mechanical CDPHE endorsed system, so they are super interested in what the technology Dave is trying to get approved.)
Last year Dave was getting close to getting the new technology to meet the discharge standards, but he was still a bit short on a few elements. Dave and the team started working with a microbiology company in Texas that uses microbes (“Bugs”) injected into the effluent when it is in the lagoon to break them down and consume pollutants so they precipitate out, which reduces what the EC unit has to do to remove them.
After months of experimentation and testing, the microbiology company has created a customized microbe solution to address the treatment challenges of the Round Mountain wastewater. Combining the microbe and electro-coagulation treatment techniques provided a treatment solution that met ALL the crazy CDPHE requirements! This happened in March of this year.

The District thought it found a solution and sent in an amended Demonstration report that outlined the research and treatment results to CDPHE for review and approval. However, CDPHE is not convinced of the effectiveness of the microbe treatment technique in the lagoon and the EC system. Roadblocks were put up as they started suggesting that the District would have to run a FULL-SCALE system for a year in order to get approval. Unfortunately, this puts the District in a Catch-22 situation as they do not have the financial resources to construct a full-scale treatment system and needed grants and loans are only available after CDPHE approval.

Dave and the microbe company are in talks with CDPHE and it is unknown what the outcome will be and when. Dave said it would take around 10 months or so to build the new EC system once (and if) the approval is granted, so that puts everything into 2024. Hence, the announcement that no new taps will likely be available until early 2024 at the earliest.
Dave said the electro-coagulation treatment process is one of the very few affordable and effective treatment solutions for the District and the dozens of other districts around the state.
The CDPHE wastewater discharge standards have become so unrealistic and expensive that building a standard mechanical waste treatment plant to their specs is completely unattainable due to cost.
The situation has become so bad that one small town in Colorado which was out of compliance with their waste treatment operation actually dissolved itself and by default, the state was left having to operate the plant!
Dave noted that if CDPHE does not approve an effective and affordable treatment solution, the one (nuclear) option is for RMWSD to get out of the waste treatment business and let the state take over. What they would do is unknown.
Once again we have a Colorado state agency, staffed by Denver nutcase environmentalists trying to destroy rural Colorado. The CDPHE effluent standards are out of touch with reality, and they resist approving this bold, new technology that would save our towns and counties hundreds of millions of dollars.
Our politicians (town, county and state) should make some noise at CDPHE or we are going to have a big, big problem in the very near future.