TIME FOR GIVING THANKS View photo/Courtney Graves Pueblo West residents Ray and Ruby White pause for a moment of prayer. The holiday season is a time to count our many blessings and a time of giving.

County, PW clash over permit

Metro district to seek state approval for wastewater project despite Pueblo County's objections.

By MIKE SPENCE
The Pueblo West View

Officials of the Pueblo West Metropolitan District and the Pueblo Board of County Commissioners have been at odds over water issues for several months.

The disagreement grew even more heated on Nov. 17, when, over metro district objections, the commissioners refused to endorse the district's application to change the discharge site for its wastewater plant.

The 3-0 vote to reject the site application plan came after a 30-minute debate in which Pueblo West officials accused the county commissioners of singling out the Pueblo West project for rejection, of going back on their word, and connecting this project with the county's battle with Pueblo West over the Southern Delivery System.

Those charges brought a rebuke from Commission Chairman Jeff Chostner.

"It was the procedural compliance that is the problem," Chostner said. "We are not hostile to your option. I have no opinion on your option. Until it comes to us formally, we are going to hold you to strict procedural compliance.

"We are very cognizant of the 35,000 residents of Pueblo West. When they are given all the facts, comprehensive facts, they will understand the issue. We are not holding anybody hostage."

Chostner denied there was any connection between the county's rejection of Pueblo West's latest project and SDS, "although the Pueblo West board would like to make that connection."

Chostner also was highly critical of the tone the metro district's representatives took at the meeting.

"It's been my practice on city council and the commission to speak with my constituents in a civil way and a professional way and not the kind of disharmonious commentary that has taken place today. An attempt to make this personal rather than professional does a disservice to the public. I think Pueblo West residents deserve better than what they received today."

The war of words was over the metro district's filing of an application with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to relocate the discharge site of its wastewater plant from the Arkansas to Lake Pueblo.

The application is one of the first steps in the metro district's attempt to build a pump back project that will clean wastewater from its wastewater plant and pump it six miles to the Golf Course Wash and into Lake Pueblo.

Pueblo West's water is non-native to the Arkansas Basin, so it can be re-used to extinction, according to state law. It also would negate the need for exchanges from Lake Pueblo, metro district officials said. Currently, Pueblo West cleans its wastewater and pumps it to Wild Horse Dry Creek and into the Arkansas River. Pueblo West is given credit for that water and exchanges those credits for water from Lake Pueblo.

The battle over the pump back permit is only the latest disagreement the metro district and the county have had over water issues.

The metro district filed a suit against the county last May over the county's requirement (through its 1041 permit process) that Pueblo West contribute water to the Pueblo Flow Management Program in order to be a participant in the SDS project.

Pueblo West officials had hoped to tap into the SDS pipeline to increase its daily water capacity from 12 million gallons to 30 million gallons.

Pueblo West officials claimed the flow management program would cost it 500 acre-feet of water a year. Replacing that water - if replacement water could be found - would cost Pueblo West tap holders $5 million. County officials say the amount of water Pueblo West would lose would be between zero and 100 acre feet.

Pueblo West's permit application for the pump back project was rejected a month ago by the Pueblo Area Council of Governments, of which all three commissioners are members. There was little doubt the permit application would be rejected on Nov. 17. But Pueblo West officials attempted to make a case, anyway.

View file photo Pueblo West Metropolitan District seeks state approval to change the current discharge route into Golf Course Wash, which leads into Lake Pueblo near the North Marina.

"We have several concerns on this whole process," said Pueblo West metro district Manager Larry Howe-Kerr. "Our discharges receive advanced treatment and the reclaimed water is in compliance with Colorado water quality control requirements."

Howe-Kerr defended the project because it conserves water.

"The pump back project is a major water re-use and conservation project that has substantial statewide benefits," Howe-Kerr said. "The metro district has done site-specific dilution studies. The minimum worst-case dilution is more than 1,500 to 1. Every state requirement will be met and the Arkansas and the reservoir will be projected."

The commissioners rejected the argument because they said the project violates the county's "208 plan," which details discharges into and out of the Arkansas River and the reservoir. The plan, created in the late 1970s, was last updated in 1993.

Kim Headley of the county's planning commission said the commissioners had granted 17 permits since 1993.

"We are wondering why the county is trying to hold this site application hostage prior to the 208 plan being changed," Howe-Kerr said. "Why is this emphasis being done now?"

Howe-Kerr then seemingly answered his own question.

"This seems to be connected politically to the SDS issue," Howe-Kerr said. "We are trying to understand that. There is a solution to the flow management program. Pueblo West has put a proposal before the county to resolve that issue. In the meantime, we are looking at maximizing the re-use of our water, to conserve that water for both current and future residents of Pueblo West."

Steve Harrison, Pueblo West's director of utilities, was even more blunt than Howe-Kerr.

"Why are the county commissioners, two of you representing Pueblo West, taking this action? You are holding us to a standard in the 208 plan that you are responsible for. If you have not updated it since 1993, why now are you holding us to the standard?"

Harrison said the site plan was not a discharge permit.

"Don't the county commissioners trust the Colorado Department of Health to do its job properly? They are the sole approver of the site plan. We are meeting the effluent requirements."

Harrison then said the commissioners were going back on a promise.

"My understanding at the beginning of our problem (with the flow management program), we were told if we would follow through with pump back, it would solve this problem," Harrison said. "Now we are trying to follow through with that and the county commissioners are saying it's not good enough."

Pueblo West officials said they have withheld proceeding their suit to give the county time to negotiate a settlement. Little or no progress has been made up to now, which may prompt the metro district to follow through with its suit.

After the commissioners voted not to approve Pueblo West's application to the state, Howe-Kerr said Pueblo West would press ahead with the application anyway with the state's Water Quality Control Division.

"We are required to get public comment on this application and that's what the commissioners did this morning," he said. "They said no. But that won't affect our going ahead to seek state approval."

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