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Brighton considers ‘creative’ alternatives
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Following protests from Weld County residents during public comments, Thornton City Council approves resolution to start pipeline construction
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Thornton overrides Weld water pipeline denial
Update on water treatment plant raises deeper questions Brighton’s water treatment plant is getting older and it’s only able to treat so much water, but the city can’t afford to replace the plant right now. Yet, the plant’s limits are already testing the waters in town. Two weeks ago, the treatment plant’s demand exceeded the city’s projected peak for the summer, causing city utilities staff to be concerned about the plant’s ability to meet peak demand throughout the summer. City Manager Jane Bais DiSessa considered issuing mandatory water restrictions as a result, which led to a fierce debate among city councilors over Bais DiSessa’s authority over city utilities. Ultimately, the council decided that it wouldn’t limit Bais DiSessa’s power. The recent council controversy may have subsided, but the fact of the matter is that equipment in Brighton’s water treatment plant will need replacing at some point, said Brett Sherman, utilities director. The original plan was to essentially build a new plant and mothball the old one. The city hired engineering firm Brown and Caldwell in 2020 to design a new plant. Equipment in the prospective new plant would replace existing operations — like the reverse osmosis (RO) technology used to treat a portion of the city’s water supply and remove nitrates from the water — and introduce new technology to soften the taste of city water. The new plant would have also had technology that “denitrifies” brine, or unusable water containing the nitrates separated from the clean water by using the reverse osmosis
C I T Y
BY LIAM ADAMS LADAMS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Teams from the Colorado Dragon Boat Association practice their skills June 26 at Adams County’s Mann Nyholt Lake in the Riverdale Regional Park. Organizers said they brought four of the long, thin row boats to the lake for a practice regatta to work up their skills before the annual festival in Denver’s Sloans Lake later this summer.
using the wastewater plant to treat brine, expand the use of non-potable (or non-drinkable) water for irrigating parks, retrofitting parks with grass that requires less watering, and ramping up engagement with customers about conservation. Though some of the alternatives are seemingly out-of-the-box, Bais DiSessa said they are important for the city to do anyway, especially the conservation efforts. “Some of these options. I know some of these people may think they are temporary, but some of them could be long-term,” Bais DiSessa said. “I think cities are recognizing that you just can’t go out and build a new treatment plant in every community and expect the residents to go into debt.” At the same time, the city hasn’t completely discarded the idea of replacing equipment at the treatment plant. Using a phased-in approach, the city would like to still replace two injection wells, pumps and pipes in the plant, and a water line to Ken Mitchell Lakes. Still, the priciest items will have to wait. Brighton currently doesn’t
Thornton can start building a segment of a water pipeline in Weld County, even though the Weld County Board of Commissioners told the city “no” two months ago. On Tuesday night, Thornton City Council unanimously approved a resolution that overrides Weld County’s denial of a permit to build a segment of the Thornton Water Project, and to authorize commencement of the pipeline’s construction. The entire Thornton Water Project is 74 miles long and it will deliver water from a reservoir near Fort Collins, nearly doubling the city’s current water supply. Twelve miles of the pipeline will run through Larimer County, 34 miles through Weld County, and five miles through Adams County. The rest of the pipeline will go in municipalities throughout those three counties. “Thornton has followed all the processes, regulations required in every jurisdiction that our project impacts,” said Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann at a June 29 meeting. “But at the end of the day, we have to use every option that we can to make sure that the pipeline is constructed, and the water arrives here in Thornton.” The council discussed the resolution very little before approving it at a June 29 meeting. Though council’s vote for approval was expected,
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process. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment set new limits for the concentration of nitrates in brine, which Brighton currently does not meet. Brighton has until December 2024 to start meeting that “discharge limit.” Before Brown and Caldwell completed its engineering analysis and design, Brighton city staff told the council that the total cost of a replacement plant could be around $100 million. Then, in March, Brown and Caldwell came back and said the cost would be between $150 to $180 million. At that point, “We hit the wall with those costs,” said Marv Falconburg, deputy city manager, in a recent meeting that also included Bais DiSessa, Sherman, and Finance Director Maria Ostrom. Falconburg added, “We don’t see how we can pull it off, so we have to go back to get more creative and look at other alternatives.” Temporary or long term? Since that realization, the city has worked with Brown and Caldwell to draft a list of strategies that the city can implement to address its needs in the meantime. That list includes
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