The 9-mile pipeline that delivers the city of Durango’s drinking water is in “critical need of replacement,” according to Public Works.
The project has become more expensive than first thought because of easements and rights-of-way complications requiring the replacement pipeline to be built significantly farther from the original pipeline that was first laid in the early 1900s.
Shelly Bellm, interim Public Works administrative manager, the original pipeline was originally intended to be repaired by slip lining, but engineers determined it needed to be replaced. Design for the replacement is slated to cost nearly $3.4 million.
City Council approved a budget amendment of $2.8 million last week to pay for the design.
Councilor Kip Koso noted the “huge” cost of the design and asked why it’s so expensive.
Bellm said the city must acquire new easements and rights of way to lay the replacement pipe, and factor those acquisitions into its design.
It’s more feasible to build the new pipe along the same route as the original pipe while keeping the original pipe active, she said. Otherwise, the water supply to the city’s reservoir would be cut while sections of the pipeline are shut down for weeks at a time.
The original pipeline will not be removed. Instead, she said, it will eventually be repaired to serve as a backup line.
The aged pipeline is a reminder of the city’s broader infrastructure issues, which the Public Works Department has tried to draw attention to since last fall.
Infrastructure needs have become a factor in the community’s ongoing debate about the city’s proposed Downtown’s Next Step project.
Public Works spokeswoman and administrative manager Laura Rieck, who is on maternity leave, framed the issue of aging infrastructure to The Durango Herald last year as a matter of out-of-site, out-of-mind.
She said a proper inventory of the city’s water infrastructure will encourage proactive maintenance, as opposed to deferred maintenance, which has been the city’s go-to approach to pipeline repairs for years.
Bellm said something similar at the Sept. 16 City Council meeting.
“As we’ve been finding more and more work throughout the city and pipes being extremely old from the 1800s, I think we really need to understand what the condition of our current system is in order to really make good recommendations and plan properly for the future,” she said.
cburney@durangoherald.com
