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By Joe Rubino
Camera Staff Writer

POSTED: 01/12/2015 10:15:34 PM MST | UPDATED: ABOUT 3 HOURS AGO

Town leaders in Superior on Monday discussed ways they might partner with their Louisville counterparts to meet each town's various water infrastructure needs in ways that could save both municipalities considerable money in the process.

The Superior Board of Trustees listened to a presentation on Monday from a consultant who has been working with both towns. In a power point presentation, Patrick Radabaugh, of Dewberry Consultants, detailed the feasibility of such options from an engineering standpoint. The idea of creating an interconnected water system first came up in 2013 and has been discussed by elected leaders from both towns that take part in a joint issues committee. No elected leaders or city staff members from Louisville attended Monday's meeting at Superior Town Hall.

Radabaugh's presentation focused on two fronts where Superior and Louisville can help one another; Superior can send its excess volume of treated water to Louisville so that city can more effectively meet the demands it expects to see as it continues to grow, and Louisville can offer use of its wastewater treatment facilities to spare Superior an estimated $18 million in future facilities upgrades.

When it comes to treated water, Radabaugh said that Superior's water treatment plant can produce 5.5 million gallons per day, well above the 3.5 million gallons per day it is projected to need when the town reaches it estimated build-out population of roughly 17,150 people. Meanwhile, Louisville's maximum daily potable water production falls around 2 million gallons short of its projected needs when the city reaches it projected maximum growth.

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According to Radabaugh's work, it could cost Louisville up to $6 million to increase capacity on its own, but if the city agrees to integrate its systems with Superior it would only have to split a $3.5 million price tag—essentially paying $1.75 million. Such work would also benefit Superior, which does not have the storage capacity to keep backup potable water on hand for emergencies. With an integrated system, Louisville could support Superior in case of emergency.

"The town really has no backup water supply," he told the trustees. "So if something happens at the water treatment plant you have about a days worth of water in the system and then no more water supply."

When it comes to water, both towns are facing very expensive upgrades in the next 5 to 10 years to upgrade their wastewater treatment plants to conform to an unfunded mandate from the Environmental Protection Agency known as "regulation 85." Superior's facility in particular does not filter ammonia out of wastewater, Radabaugh said.

He estimated the necessary upgrades for Superior at $18 million, a figure Trustee Debra Williams dubbed "a big ouch." Town Manager Matt Magley said that a bond issues would likely be the only conceivable way the town could afford that work. Louisville needs an estimated $23.7 million in facilities upgrades to conform with regulation 85.

Radabaugh prepared five options, all contingent on Louisville making it's $23.7 million in upgrades, for Superior, including staying independent of it neighbor's wastewater treatment system. Radabaugh estimated remaining independent would cost Superior $21.4 million, while simply sending all wastewater flow and solids handling to Louisville was estimated to be the cheapest option at $13.8 million. The option favored by town staff members including Public Works and Utilities Director Alex Ariniello was to build a new lift station for wastewater that could serve the future Superior Town Center until a deal can be struck with Louisville and then begin using gravity to send wastewater to Louisville. That options was estimated to cost Superior $18 million itself but give the town flexibility should relations with Louisville break down in the future.

In the end the board decided it wanted to see a more detailed breakdown of the costs in the wastewater options. Magley said he would work to schedule a second work session on the topic in the near future.

Joe Rubino: 303-473-1328, rubinoj@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/rubinojc

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-c...ter-facilities


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