Worm Turff

A river flowing through a forest.

Will water bills in Eagle County turn into a second mortgage?

Zoe Goldstein

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Officials address water affordability at Eagle River Valley State of the River

The Eagle River flows into the Colorado River, which supplies water to some 40 million people across the West. Increasing water rates are driven by changing standards for clean water, aging infrastructure, climate variability, the need for risk resiliency, dramatically increasing construction costs, and relatively small population numbers to absorb fixed costs.

Can anything be done about rising water costs in Eagle County? A panel on water affordability featuring local leaders addressed that issue on Wednesday, May, 29, during the Eagle River Valley State of the River 2024 meeting at Colorado Mountain College in Edwards.

The panel featured Sen. Dylan Roberts, who represents Eagle County at the state Capitol; Siri Roman, the general manager of the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District; Michelle Meteer, Minturn’s town manager; and Jeremy Rietmann, Gypsum’s town manager.

“Our small communities, we’re facing some big needs,” Roman said. “We know that water rates have been increasing for all of us, and we have so many needs in front of us and they’re continuing to increase.”

All water agencies operate under certain rules, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. The way the Clean Water Act was developed relies on water providers making continual improvements to their facilities to better serve their communities.

Increasing water rates are driven by changing standards for clean water, aging infrastructure, climate variability, the need for risk resiliency, dramatically increasing construction costs, and relatively small population numbers to absorb fixed costs.

“People just need to understand that these increases are not for nothing,” Rietmann said. “They’re to sustain the level of stewardship that is required to protect public health and protect our waterways.”

The water affordability panel at the 2024 Eagle River Valley State of the River on Wednesday, May 29, at Colorado Mountain College in Edwards featured Siri Roman, general manager Eagle River Water & Sanitation District; Sen. Dylan Roberts; Michelle Meteer, the town manager for Minturn; and Jeremy Rietmann, the town manager for Gypsum.Zoe Goldstein/Vail Daily

Construction costs

“We all know this, from working on our house,” Roman said. “Construction costs are going through the roof. We’re feeling it on a different scale in wastewater.”

There are a limited number of engineers and contractors that do wastewater treatment construction, according to Roman. Roman, Meteer and Rietmann all cited examples of ongoing construction projects that have seen staggering increases in cost.

In 2002, Gypsum installed its current wastewater treatment plant for $5 million, or $8.7 million in today’s dollars, according to Rietmann. As the town has grown, its population of 9,000 now requires a new wastewater processing facility.

Gypsum has been working on plans to build a new wastewater treatment plant for several years, and the cost has continued to climb. In 2018, the plant was estimated to cost $35 million. In 2020, the number climbed to $65 million. Briefly, the number skyrocketed to $120 million, and after negotiations, the current estimated cost of Gypsum’s new wastewater treatment plant is around $80 million.

To prepare to accommodate for the high price without putting the town into deep debt, Gypsum’s wastewater rates have increased. From 2019 to 2022, the town increased rates by 6%. In 2023, the town increased water rates by 40%, with plans to increase by 40% again in 2024, and again in 2025. A 25% increase is planned for 2026.

“So that’s 309% over seven years,” Rietmann said.

Gypsum’s tap fees were also increased in 2023 by 71%.

Minturn has around 1,000 residents, with 540 water accounts. The town looked at the cost of putting in a new membrane plant to filter clean water in 2019. That year, it was a $6 million project. Now, the same project is projected to cost around $18 million.

“When you spread that out over 540 accounts, it’s a big number over a long period of time, it’s really tough to deal with,” Meteer said.

The Minturn Town Council will review proposed legislation implementing tiered water rates for the town’s residents during its regular meeting on Wednesday, June 5.

The Eagle River Water & Sanitation District and Upper Eagle Regional Water Authority provide water to around 30,000 people, and wastewater services to many as well. The district and authority have several construction projects either recently completed or in the pipeline. To avoid taking on too much debt, water rates have gone up.

“Our rates have gone up 10% in the last several years. We really don’t see an end in sight,” Roman said.

State and federal relief

Local water operators are seeking funding from the state and the federal government.

One potential source of funding is the state’s water projects bill, which passes annually in different forms. Over the past two years, the bill has seen a surge in funding due to the legalization of sports betting — 90% of sports betting tax revenue goes to the water projects bill.

The 2024 annual water projects bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis on May 29, allocates $55 million to a variety of water projects around the state. This year, the bill includes $20 million to help the Colorado River District purchase the Shoshone water right.

Before the legalization of sports betting, the bill typically scraped together $10 to $15 million per year in funding, according to Roberts.

“Regardless of what you feel about sports betting, to have a continuous source of funding for water projects in Colorado has been a game changer,” Roberts said.

The bill can also provide funding to local water projects.

“Some of the costs of the projects the towns are talking about could be funded in part, at least, by funding from the projects bill,” Roberts said.

Receiving federal funding for projects is challenging because, though the pot may be large, the number of towns and municipalities competing for the funding is typically also large.

Minturn has received $3 million in federal funding for its water work through two grant cycles with the assistance of federal representatives, Meteer said, but it was a complicated and daunting process.

The Eagle River Water & Sanitation District has hired Washington D.C.-based consultants this year to better its chances of receiving federal funding, including for the Bolts Lake Reservoir project, estimated to total $100 million or more.

But applying for federal funding is not the district’s only plan.

“As we look at how to handle water affordability, we don’t see it as just one solution,” Roman said. “A big part of it is collaboration and flexibility.”

The district’s approach also includes asking the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment for extended time on regulatory drivers, as costs increase when planning and construction are held to time limitations, due to the remoteness of the Western Slope.

Water conservation

Conserving water by using less, and using more efficiently, is crucial to preventing a multi-year drought, and a cornerstone of the district’s plan to protect the river.

“That’s the easiest way for us to protect our water supplies, and the cheapest way, is to just use less, waste less,” Roman said.

“Water and water policy, both on the quality side and regulation as well as the quantity side and conservation, has never been as much of a hot topic, and talked about topic, at the Legislature as it is now,” Roberts said. “Over the last few years, we’ve really been able to bring water to the forefront of our work.”

Historically, Western Slope representatives have led the way on water, as Front Range legislators had less of a direct connection to the ebb and flow of water sources, Roberts explained.

“They don’t live near rivers, they don’t understand the importance of this to our communities in the mountains or to the agriculture community or what have you, but that has changed over the last few years,” he said.

Two years ago, the state Legislature passed a bill to incentivize local governments to remove non-functional turf surrounding government buildings. The program, Roberts said, is currently estimated to save 11 million gallons of water a year. Within the water projects bill is an additional $2 million in funding to provide turf replacement incentives to local governments to encourage them to remove their non-functional turf.

“By replacing that turf, we can save a tremendous amount of water. In fact, it is estimated that around 50% of municipal water use is used to water nonfunctional turf,” Roberts said.

The 2024 Senate Bill 5 prohibits the installation of new nonfunctional turf in new development. “We’re trying to get out ahead of the problem now,” Roberts said.

Preparing to protect the future

Local water providers will continue to work through the challenges of meeting the twin demands of funding their required projects and regular service without bankrupting the locals who live, play and work in Eagle County.

“We don’t want our community, their water bill, to be a second mortgage. That is the last thing that we want,” Roman said.

Taking a proactive approach to water concerns is necessary, Roberts said, “because with less water, those water bills only continue to go up, and it would become a second mortgage at some point if the scary consequences of this drought come to fruition and we’re not prepared.”

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