Fort Lewis College was the city of Durango’s top water user in 2012, consuming 24.2 million gallons.
Perhaps that’s no surprise given that the college has about 1,400 on-campus residents and another 3,200 students, staff members and faculty who arrive each day.
Residence halls on campus account for 52 percent of the college’s water use, the single largest source.
“Given that Fort Lewis College is like its own small town in a lot of ways, with a lot of acreage and buildings, as well as people living and working here, I don’t think it would be a big surprise to anyone that we’re a large water user,” college spokesman Mitch Davis said. “With our investments into environmentally friendly construction and upgrades, the college is working to ensure that we’re good stewards of that water.”
The city of Durango released a list of its top 20 water users to The Durango Herald in response to a public records request. The list covers the entire year, eliminating any seasonal variation in water use.
Many on the list are large institutions – Durango School District 9-R, Mercy Regional Medical Center and the city’s water treatment plant.
The list also reveals some heavy water users that might not come to mind – a pair of trailer parks, two hotels and the city’s own fire hydrant system. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad makes the list for its Roundhouse, where train engines are filled with water to make steam on the trip to Silverton.
Several water users made the list at least in part because of irrigation to keep grass green in Durango’s dry, high-elevation climate. Durango High School, the city’s Santa Rita Park, Mercy Regional Medical Center and GRVP LLC, the developer of Three Springs, were major water consumers because of irrigation.
The U.S. Drought Monitor classifies La Plata County as being in “abnormally dry” conditions. The designation is short of drought but indicates a measure of concern. Climate models broadly predict the Southwest will continue to become drier and hotter in coming years as global warming advances.
Last summer, the Animas River became so low that the city could operate only one of its three pumps at Santa Rita Park. The Florida River is another major source of the city’s water, thanks to a decades-old intake near Ute Pass. The city anticipates receiving water from the Animas-La Plata project in coming years.
Many top users are undergoing conservation efforts. For FLC’s part, the college has spent $9.5 million on efforts to make campus more efficient and environmentally friendly. Water-conservation efforts are expected to cut water usage by 15 percent, or nearly 5.2 million gallons a year, Davis said.
Coming in second on the list of the city’s top water users is the city’s own fire hydrant system, consuming 23.2 million gallons in 2012. Industrial companies such as GCC Energy, owner of King Coal Mine, use fire hydrants to fill up water tankers for construction, drinking water and other uses. The companies pay the city for the water.
Companies like using the fire hydrants because they’re fast and convenient, filling up a tanker truck in only a few minutes, said Steve Salka, the city’s director of utilities,
The system overuses the hydrants, and the city eventually will establish a centralized water filling station for public and industrial use, Salka said. However, Salka said responsible use of the hydrants helps clear the system.
“It helps us keep our water lines free of stagnant water,” he said. “It keeps them moving, and it’s a healthy thing to do.”
Within the last two years, the city has become much better at managing its water, Salka said.
“We’re getting really good at knowing where our water’s going,” he said.
It’s part of Salka’s job to be the city’s water cop. He works with Durango police to reduce water theft.
Salka has installed alarms on some fire hydrants that have been breached by water thieves. The alarms ring directly to his cellphone, allowing Salka to notify police. Several water thieves have been caught this way, he said.
Water theft generally results in a summons to municipal court and a fine.
A Denver company that was laying blacktop on Walmart’s parking lot recently was caught stealing water, as was a truck from a Farmington company that was stealing water from a fire hydrant behind Walmart, Salka said.
Thieves often don’t know how to properly open and close the hydrants, causing damage.
“It can shake the hydrant right out of the ground and ruin our infrastructure,” Salka said.
Each hydrant costs $4,800 to replace.
“As we get more sophisticated in our technology, this sort of thing is going to go away,” Salka said.
Coming in third was Durango School District 9-R’s irrigation at Escalante Middle School. The school district also is responsible for the fifth-largest use, for irrigating sports fields at Durango High School.
The fourth-highest user was Animas Park for Mobile Homes at 288 Animas View Drive, owned by Ted and Wilma Cooper. The mobile-home park consumed 12.9 million gallons in 2012.
“I’m surprised we’re that high, but I sure feel it when I write that check every month,” said Wilma Cooper.
The park’s 120 mobile-home lots and one duplex all run off the same meter. In addition to household use, irrigation contributes to the high water tab.
“We want everything to look nice,” Cooper said.
The Coopers distribute pamphlets from the city to encourage responsible water use, but some residents are better about it than others, she said.
“Some people, they water excessively,” she said.
Another mobile-home park, Island Cove at 485 Florida Road, comes in at 10th place, using nearly 8.3 million gallons in 2012.
Greg Hoch, the city’s director of planning and community development, said mobile-home parks run off of one master meter. He said he’s not surprised some made the list.
“That makes a lot of sense because those are mobile-home parks that are pretty large,” Hoch said.
Two hotels also made the list: DoubleTree Hotel and Holiday Inn. DoubleTree is the ninth-highest water consumer, at 9.3 million gallons in 2012. Holiday Inn came in 18th, using 4.2 million gallons.
The hotels employ a variety of water-conservation measures, including low-flow toilets, sinks and shower heads.
Mercy Regional Medical Center comes in at seventh place for the hospital itself, using 10.6 million gallons, and again at 20th place for irrigation, accounting for another 3.7 million gallons.
The hospital has 82 patient rooms, each with a shower or shower-bathtub, said Mercy spokesman David Bruzzese.
“It’s a 215,000-square-foot building that is open every hour of the day, every day of the year,” he said.
The hospital has a variety of conservation programs, including a robust recycling program. Mercy also purchases bus passes for every employee and replaced incandescent light bulbs with fluorescents.
Bruzzese said the irrigated portion of Mercy’s 57-acre campus is “pretty minimal.”
“The portion of that that is irrigated is quite small,” he said. “We use other types of ground cover, like bark and rock.”
Concerns about water conservation might heighten if the San Juan Mountains endure another dry year. That’s a distinct possibility, said Joe Ramey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
Precipitation in the San Juans is influenced greatly by the El Niño cycle. This winter appears to be a “no Niño” cycle, favoring neither El Niño or La Niña, said Ramey.
“It’s a wild-card year,” he said. “The jet stream can set up anywhere. There’s a greater chance that we will be out of the storm track.”
cslothower@durangoherald.com
