Round Mountain Water and Sanitation District (RMWSD) is in a time crunch. They now have less than 180 days to build the experÂimental wastewater treatment plant approved by the Colorado Department of Public Health Administration (CDPHE), but for the project to go forward, RMWSD had to find a way to dispose of the 30 years of accumulated sludge in the water treatment ponds located northwest of Westcliffe.
Last week, the company RMWSD hired, Denali Water Solutions, who tried to spread the sludge on a ranch to the south of WestÂcliffe, but due to the location being right next to Grape Creek, there was a lot of local pushback.
Instead of trying to press forward with the local spreading of the sludge, RMWSD DisÂtrict Manager Dave Schneider asked Denali Water Solutions what additional costs would be added to ship the sludge out of the Valley.
Schneider explained the financial situation during a special Board of County CommisÂsioner Meeting last week, â$229,000 to do the sludge removal (locally). When I do these projects, from history, I usually put in a large contingency with $62,000 into this project just in case something, like we have right now hapÂpens. So we projected costs for this project at $300,000, so we have that tucked away to do that. After the meeting last Thursday, I decided that there is significant pushback, justified or unjustified, and it does not matter; the realizaÂtion was that I really did not want to get into a war. I have a vested interest in getting that pilot plant started and I have 180 days to get that online. So I called on Friday. I called Denali Water Solutions and asked them to sharpen their pencils and see what kind of additional cost it would take to basically truck this out of the county in their approved land down below (in eastern Colorado). So I was pleasÂantly surprised because I had kinda done my own thinking that it would cost $300,000 as a realistic price. They [Denali] came back with an additional $89,600 dollars to run the sludge off the plant. That is basically $4,000 for testÂing, $5,000 for mobilization, and $320,600 to remove the sludge and move it out of the county.â
He continued, âSo, we had the $62,000 in my contingency fund. And we requested of the County when I talked to CommisÂsioner Epp and, requested a contribution of $40,000 from an outside source.â
After more discussion from the public about the situation it was finally decided that the county would donate $40,000 so that the shippment of sludge contract could be signed this week and allow the building of the new wastewater plant to move forward.
Lucas Epp made a motion âthat we take $40,000 out of the Custer County continÂgency fund to donate to Round Mountain Water and Sanitation District to help offset the waste disposal costs.â This motion passed with a unanimous vote from the Board of County Commissioners.
â Jordan Hedberg