Round Mountain Water Waste Treatment Update
Catch 22 Continues to Hold Up New Taps.
State Bureaucracy the Problem

by Fred Hernandez
The ongoing debacle of the sewer system problems of the Round Mountain Water and Sanitation District is just beginning to heat up. All the delays, through no fault whatsoever of the District, can be attributed to constantly changing rules and never-ending State and Federal bureaucracies. This report attempts to simplify the complex problems currently facing the District.
The District’s antiquated wastewater treatment system need to be totally upgraded to the tune of many millions of dollars. Proposed solutions are estimated to cost over 14 million dollars. This is far beyond the financial ability of the District and it’s constituents to install or operate. The District must find a treatment system that is both effective and affordable.
The most cost effective design for discharging reclaimed water from the treatment facility is to divert to Grape Creek that runs nearby. However, the Federal government declared Grape Creek as “impaired” due to excess nutrient loading causing harmful algae blooms in Lake DeWeese. This has caused the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to impose excessively stringent limits on any reclaimed water discharge, leading to the need for a very complex and expensive treatment system. This pollution could be cleaned up, but the state will not do so.
The District has researched other means of effluent disposal, but stream water discharge is the only option available. Initial treatment designs were estimated to cost around six million dollars and initially, the District was successful in receiving over $3,500,000 in grants and $2,500,000 in low interest loans. However, as rules and limits were changed, the redesigned plant cost skyrocketed to
over $14,000,000.
The District has by now spent over $675,000 on engineering, geotech work and other expenses related to the long-protracted study of the possible solutions to the ongoing problem. Their resources are depleted, and money is now needed badly.
After realizing that the traditional solution for wastewater treatment was unaffordable, District management has been conducting extensive studies and research of a new treatment technology that is currently not approved by CDPHE, known as the Powell Water Microalgae System. The new system testing has been proven on a small scale and would only cost $3 – 4 million to install.
CDPHE acknowledges the success but requires further proof on a larger scale. That requires funding which the District does not have. All these efforts have led to a catch 22 situation as the District does not have the funds available to construct a large-scale pilot study unless Federal grants and loans can be used, and those grants and loans are only available after the treatment system is approved by CDPHE.
What is urgently needed to move forward from this impasse is clearly that the state needs to assign an amount of funding designated as low interest loans to entities that can do research and design the necessary technologies to solve some of these problems faced by not only Round Mountain, but by many other counties and municipalities throughout the state. RMWSD has done everything within its power to try and meet the standards of the state. However, without the needed funding, there is little more that can be done to alleviate the situation at this time.