F or reasons that are inexplicable, the city of Durango is refusing to acknowledge the issue before it. The problem is not how to fix the city’s sewer plant. The question is where to put the new one. To rebuild the sewer plant where it is now would be to forgo a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to clean up the very center of Durango.
The city is making it increasingly likely that the November ballot measure planned for funding the sewer plant overhaul will be seen not as a simple funding mechanism for needed infrastructure, but as a referendum on moving the sewer plant. Critics are already suggesting as much, and the city could very well lose that vote.
That the city staff has little interest in this is understandable. The sewer plant is essentially our municipal toilet; everybody needs it but nobody really wants to dwell on it.
Build a rec center or a new library, and city councilors will have their names on a placard and be greeted with high-fives in the grocery store. A sewer plant? Not so much.
Plumbing has to be attended to, of course. But like a homebuilder, what the city needs to do is get it out of our municipal living room. Where the sewer plant is now was at one time the far end of Durango. No more. Not only is Santa Rita the most well-used park in the city, but because of the confluence of U.S. Highways 160 and 550 that area is probably the most viewed spot in Durango. Is the sewer plant really what we want to showcase?
Still, the city has given only cursory attention to alternatives. It has dismissed the idea of moving the plant to Cundiff Park largely without explanation even though the city already owns that property.
It has dismissed a county-owned plot near the jail saying simply that it is not for sale. Did anyone ask? Few cars have “for sale” signs on them, but most could be had nonetheless in the right deal.
The city has insisted that any alternative location must include at least 10 acres. Why, when the current site is less than 7 acres?
For that matter, why is the city planning to double the capacity of the sewer plant from 2 million gallons per day to 4 million? Most of the growth in this area is expected to be east or south of the high bridge and not in the city’s sewer service area. Why would a 3 million gallon per day plant not suffice? The savings could help offset the cost of moving.
So could better accounting. Much of the more than 6 acres now occupied by the sewer plant could be added to Santa Rita. Surely that has value. Why is that not taken into account? (And has the city said how much of the existing park will be sacrificed to keep the plant where it is?)
The City Council and city staff seem like they just do not want to deal with moving the sewer plant. The cost estimates and projected difficulties sound more like excuses than explanations. That is not how to make a decision that could affect this town for 50 years.
Durango needs a new sewer plant, but does that facility need to be the most visible element in the most viewed space in town? As things stand now, that will be the question for the voters in November.
