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Council OKs ballot question for sewer funds

City will examine alternative site for plant

The wastewater-treatment plant in Santa Rita Park could require major upgrades at its current location to meet state regulations, no mater what the Durango City Council decides about the plant’s long-term future.

City councilors approved a ballot question Tuesday that will go to voters in November asking to spend $68 million on a sewage-treatment plant.

But the council did not decide on whether to move or remodel the plant. Instead, the group decided to ask a consultant to re-examine three private parcels across the river from Mercury Payment Systems that could serve as one site.

Mulhern MRE will evaluate the site, but it is unknown how long it will take, said Mary Beth Miles, assistant to the city manager.

Time is essential to the project because the city sewer plant must meet Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s increasingly strict water-quality standards, and the plant is already operating on the edge of failure.

Representatives from the department spoke with the council on the phone during an executive session Tuesday night, and they explained the risk of permit violation the city faces.

“These are ongoing risks that we face every day, but they get worse the longer it takes to really start to moving the problem,” Councilor Dick White said.

The city constantly exceeds the state’s effluent limits for ammonia. But the staff members at the treatment plant take more samples than normally would be necessary to make sure the averages for ammonia stay below the state’s limits.

Durango’s most recent violation for ammonia effluent was in March 2013, said Meghan Trubee, a spokeswoman for the department.

Ammonia, a by-product of the wastewater-treatment process, is toxic to fish.

The city’s ability to treat the water for ammonia has been increasingly inadequate as the city has grown, Salka said.

“The amount of solid and organic material that’s in our sewer is more than we can handle,” he said.

To properly treat for ammonia, the city needs new basins that could cost $10 million. Right now, the plant does not have enough capacity to hold back wastewater for a sufficient amount of time to treat it for ammonia, he said.

Without these basins, the city wastewater-treatment plant will be unable to meet state regulations for ammonia effluent in 2018 because the standards are likely to be more stringent, he said. In 2018, the city’s permit will be up for renewal, and the city needs to show it is taking active steps to meet water-quality standards.

If the city doesn’t address the ammonia violations by upgrading the plant, it must stop new construction, Salka said.

But if councilors decide to move the plant, Salka is concerned any investment in new basins at the existing plant could be a waste of money.

It is unknown if the new basins could be left at Santa Rita if the rest of the plant infrastructure was moved to the new site downstream. The consultant will determine if that is possible, Miles said.

City councilors previously said they explored all the options for moving the plant, but they are re-examining the three private parcels at the request of concerned residents.

They discussed the parcel in a closed session Tuesday before deciding not to vote on a resolution that would have named a remodel of Santa Rita Park as their course of action.

“People don’t believe we have really looked at all the options. ... We have to convince people we really have looked at the viable options,” White said.

mshinn@durangoherald.com



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