As the Colorado River faces its first water shortage declaration, Colorado Springs is not expecting to see any immediate ramifications, although it is bracing for ongoing drought conditions through new conservation and water reuse measures.
Colorado Springs Utilities had three years of water supply in storage as of the end of July and the water levels in the city’s reservoirs are all around average, water conveyance planning supervisor Kalsoum Abbasi told the Utilities board Wednesday. Monday’s shortage declaration was not a surprise but it does make the drought conditions “a little bit more real.”
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will all see cuts in their water allocations next year from the shortage declaration, but Colorado Springs is not in a position to help in any way even though it is dependent on the basin, she said. The city draws about 65% of its water from outside the area, including a significant amount from the Colorado River watershed.
In the past month, monsoons have helped ease the drought across the Western Slope, after two years of failing to show up, she said. The rains have been welcome, and the U.S. Drought Monitor reveals “a much better picture than even last month at this time,” she said.
However, to help prepare for long-term hotter and drier conditions across the west, Colorado Springs Utilities is exploring direct potable reuse of water, a system that would treat water for use immediately after it leaves a sewage treatment plant when it would otherwise flow back into the river.
“It’s not a stretch to just take it a little bit further and turn it into drinking water. … This is a way we can have what we consider a drought resistant water supply,” said Birgit Landin, who explained the process Wednesday. Residents also got a look inside the process at a mobile demonstration trailer developed by Utilities, Colorado School of Mines and Carollo Engineers to understand the process.
The state could have rules in place to govern direct potable reuse by early 2023, although Utilities has not determined when they may start using it, said Kirk Olds, manager for water and wastewater engineering.
Part of the preparation includes educating the residents on the idea because most of the city’s water has not been used by an upstream community before, Landin said.
“It’s kind of getting past the ick factor,” she said.
In practice, water coming from sewage treatment plants is more consistent in quality than water coming from reservoirs, said Sage Church, water operations specialist for Utilities. For example, streams can see ash flows following a fire, which can hurt water quality.
If adopted, Utilities would bring water from sewage treatment plants to water treatment plants directly and add it to water flowing from reservoirs, Church said.
The treatment plants would have to be modified for the process, Olds said. For example, utilities could need to add ultraviolet light treatment and microfiltration that forces the water through a ceramic membrane with pores 100 times narrower than a human hair, according to a Utilities presentation.
The water could be reused up to four times through this process, Landin said.
After that, the water’s taste could start to change because there would be more minerals in it than residents are used to, Olds said.
In addition to water reuse, Utilities expects to build new reservoirs, increase conservation and lease water from agricultural users to help provide water for the hundreds of thousands of new people in the coming decades.
The Utilities board informally approved spending $800,000 on Wednesday for land that could become home to a new reservoir downstream of Pueblo that could support 3,600 households in Colorado Springs, said Earl Wilkinson, chief water services officer with Utilities. The reservoir expected to cost $52.8 million is planned to serve other communities as well including Pueblo and Aurora.
New landscaping standards for businesses and a new initiative to identify leaks in water pipes among other programs could also cut back on water consumption, he said.
Info on direct potable reuse tours can be found at CSU.org.
This content was originally published here.
