We always hope there are ways to fix broken government infrastructure, like, say, a problematic sewer system.
…and we always hope the cost is not too exorbitant.
Sometimes, the key broken piece is the government decision-making process itself. We all make mistakes, but when a local government makes a mistake, the repair costs can run into millions of dollars.
At last Tuesday’s Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District (PSSGID) board meeting at Town Hall, the motion that was approved unanimously gave instructions to the Town staff to negotiate a fix to the 7-mile-long sewer pipeline that delivers downtown sewage to the uptown Vista Treatment Plant operated by Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD).
The modifications provisionally approved this week by the PSSGID board (the same folks who also serve as our Town Council) involve the installation of two new features at Pump Station 1 (located near Yamaguchi Park) and Pump Station 2 (located near the upscale Timber Ridge subdivision.)
Before we get into the details of the proposed repairs, however, I’m thinking about one of my favorite topics. Growth.
Back in 2005, when Archuleta County’s population was around 12,000 people, several developers were negotiating long-term “vested rights” agreements with the Town government. These developers were all proposing new subdivisions — it’s a great way to make a lot of money, if you don’t accidentally run into problems, like, say, a dreadful recession.
And because the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) was getting ever more careful about sewage, these developers were very interested in hooking up to the Town sewer system, and thus avoiding the relative nightmare of building and maintaining a private sewer treatment plant within their new subdivisions.
Unfortunately, the Town’s outdoor sewer lagoons were already experiencing treatment problems, even without new customers being added to the system. Faced with the prospect of doubling the number of Town sanitation customers within the next few years, the Town Council increased its monthly sewer rates — as requested by USDA as a condition for a proposed loan — to build up the PSSGID capital reserves, in preparation for building a new, state-of-the-art treatment plant near the lagoons site. The cost estimate for the new facility seemed to change monthly, depending upon whose approval was needed at the moment, but the approximate cost appeared to be around $5 million.
We really needed this new sewer treatment plant, because every developer and his brother seemed poised to add sewer customers to the Town system.
But the folks at PAWSD had a different idea. Instead of building a new, $5 million state-of-the-art treatment plant to handle downtown sewage, the Town should finance a 7-mile pipeline from the (soon-to-be-decommissioned?) lagoons, and pump the raw sewage uphill to the PAWSD Vista Treatment Plant. This pipeline could be built for half the price of a new treatment plant, the PAWSD staff assured us.
The Town staff — led by then-Town Manager David Mitchem — and the PAWSD staff — led by then-Manager Ed Winton — met repeatedly in closed door meetings to negotiate the details of an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA). More about that process, tomorrow.
In January 2012, the Town Council — acting the PSSGID board of directors — approved the sewer pipeline IGA during a contentious meeting at Town Hall. (More about that, too, tomorrow.)
So work began on the new pipeline. Unfortunately, the developers who had previously brought forward plans to use this system had all mothballed their proposed subdivision projects, due to a struggling local economy.
One of the biggest mistakes the Town has ever made? Perhaps. But none of us knew how big.
Because size does matter.
Here’s one way that size matters, when you are building a sewer pipeline. We know that PAWSD was extremely eager to arrange delivery of the Town’s downtown sewage to the Vista Plant, because that particular treatment plant was operating at about 1/4 capacity, and was thus operating inefficiently. Adding the Town’s sewage load would increase efficiency, and also increase the PAWSD budget. The treatment plant had been built several years earlier, too big for current requirements, because… well, Archuleta County had been growing at a fabulous rate during the 1990s, and that rate was obviously going to continue indefinitely…
It would have been crazy to build a reasonably-sized facility that would only need to be enlarged in the near future.
By 2011, the growth had disappeared. But surely it was coming back… in the very near future? So when PAWSD and PSSGID sat down to design the sewer pipeline, it was understood that the pipe would need to be oversized, to allow for growth.
When I flush my toilet here in downtown Pagosa, the waste stream flows downhill (as it does in any sensible and affordable sewer system) to join the waste from all my downtown neighbors, at Pump Station 1. From Pump Station 1, the waste stream heads uphill towards Pump Station 2.
Slowly. Uphill.
Slowly, because the downtown Pagosa Springs sewer customers are not generating enough sewage to keep the pumps running full-time, in a pipeline that was sized for a endlessly growing economy. Especially in the off-seasons, when tourists are scarce, the uphill flow moves at a snail’s pace.
And there’s the rub. When sewage sits too long in a closed, slow-moving pipeline system, it becomes an ideal environment for anaerobic bacteria.
“Anaerobic” refers to an absence of oxygen, and anaerobic bacteria thrive in places filled with slow-moving human waste and no oxygen. And one of their primary by-products, as they thrive and grow, is H2S.
Hydrosulfuric acid. AKA hydrogen sulfide. AKA “sewer gas”. The unpleasant smell of rotten eggs — and an acid that slowly corrodes the metal pumps in a sewer pipeline pump station.
How did the original pipeline decision get made?
What are the possible solutions?
And what will it cost us?