There is little about the city of Durango’s plans to rebuild its sewer plant that has not been controversial. This much, however, is certain: If the city rebuilds the sewer plant where it is now, it will be there not for years, but for generations. And in that time, it will be one of the first things seen by every tourist, prospective employer, rafter, kayaker, fly-fishing enthusiast, bicyclist or soccer mom to come through this town.
Is that really the aspect of Durango we want to showcase?
The need to bring the city’s wastewater treatment works up to date is not in doubt. The problem is City Council’s decision to keep the plant where it is has made this vote a referendum on the plant’s location.
That leaves no other option for those who care about Durango’s future image – and its future residents – but to vote down the ballot issue to fund the fixes.
We can revisit that when there is a better plan in place.
Durango exists at the intersection of two highways and a river. The sewer plant sits almost exactly where all three now meet. That site may have made sense in the 1950s when across the river there was a mill spilling waste into the Animas next to a pile of radioactive waste and Santa Rita actually was the farthest extent of town. It no longer does when it is in the middle of the city. It makes even less sense going forward.
We can do better. And $68 million is way too much to spend on a plan that ignores one of the public’s fundamental concerns.
The city has considered other options. But the most often mentioned alternative site – Cundiff Park – was dismissed with less investigation than other locations that seem more problematic. Cundiff has a lot going for it. The city already owns it. It is used only as a bicycle track and a place for the city to dump snow. It is not visible from Highway 550/160. And it is downhill from everywhere it would serve, eliminating the need for pumping.
There are issues, of course.
The city says the site is too small, a Great Outdoors Colorado grant would have to be repaid, converting it from park land would necessitate an election, the city would need to build a new BMX track and the neighbors would object.
Oh, and it would have to find another place to dump snow.
Really?
Anywhere the plant might be will have neighbors. What about the folks at the south end of East Third Avenue – and East Fourth, East Fifth and so forth – who border on the existing plant? Do they not count?
Not to mention that Santa Rita Park is the most used in the city. Could the BMX track go to Ewing Mesa? Has anyone asked? The existing track was built by volunteers. How much would it really cost for the city to construct a bigger, better one?
The GOCO complaint is risible. What the city might have to repay is less than 0.5 percent of $68 million. Besides, the GOCO board has a long history of working well with local communities and especially with Durango. It might well understand the city’s need in this situation – especially in that the city would get more park land in Santa Rita.
The idea, as the city has suggested, that GOCO might become spiteful down the line were the city to convert Cundiff to another use has no basis in that board’s history.
Then again, has the city talked to those folks? That would be where to start.
As for Cundiff being too small, perhaps the design for the plant is too big. For example, one critic has pointed out that the design includes 5,000 square feet of office and lab space. Does it have to be that big? Better yet, does it have to be on that site? What else could be trimmed?
From the alternatives examined and the parameters built in, one could imagine that the studies were done in such a way as to validate a forgone conclusion.
Writing in his “From the Mayor” column (Herald, Oct. 4), Durango Mayor Dean Brookie wrote that the “City Council has repeatedly rejected the Cundiff Park site as politically unacceptable.”
Can a few nearby residents be that powerful? Why do their interests outweigh those of the entire community and future generations?
That moving the sewer plant will be difficult is understood. But there will never be a cheaper or easier time and barring some radical change in technology, there will never be better options as for where to put it. That does not mean leaving it in place is the right thing to do. We can do better.
Vote “no” on the city of Durango’s Question 2B.
