The Cortez Sanitation District hopes to secure a grant that could bring tens of millions of dollars to the area to upgrade its again sanitation infrastructure.
As it stands, the city’s sewer district is over 50 years old.
Lines are deteriorating, well past their useful life, said Jan Nelson, manager of the Cortez Sanitation District.
What’s more, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recently made phosphorous and nitrogen regulations stricter, forcing sanitation districts statewide to pivot and remove more of those nutrients by 2027, Nelson said.
Without the grant, “bills will triple” to afford those changes, rising from the monthly $48 people pay now to an estimated $120, Nelson said.
“This is all over Colorado,” said Nelson. “Rates will have to go up significantly.”
Plus, for years now, the district has been in contact with Vista Verde Village, a mobile home park in Cortez that has its own unreliable lagoon wastewater treatment system.
“Lagoons are very labor intensive. It takes a higher level of skill to operate them successfully, but since they are normally located at smaller facilities, they generally can’t afford to hire that level of operator,” Nelson said.
So they’ve been discussing the possibility of connecting the park to the city’s sewer system, a project with “daunting” costs, Nelson said.
That’s where the grant comes in.
There’s roughly $2 billion of grant money up for grabs nationwide to fund projects that are “community-driven” and “implement meaningful solutions” to “overcome longstanding environmental challenges,” as the grant reads.
According to the EPA, “sanitation and wastewater treatment is crucial for environmental and public health.”
Therefore, “we feel it’s a qualifying project,” said Tod Phinney, the senior vice president at Souder, Miller & Associates, an engineering consulting firm working with the sanitation district on this project.
The grant money stems from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which ultimately helped make “the largest investment in environmental and climate justice in U.S. history” when it gave $2.8 billion to the EPA, according to the grant.
Most of that money – $2 billion – will be awarded as community change grants.
The Cortez Sanitation District is hoping to secure anywhere from $10 to $20 million of that money. It’s “highly unusual,” but the award doesn’t require any matching funds, Nelson said.
To be eligible, applicants must be from “disadvantaged communities,” involve the community in crafting a solution-oriented environmental-related project, and partner with a local nonprofit.
The south side of Cortez qualifies as a “disadvantaged community,” according to the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which is a nationwide map of such communities.
The sanitation district also partnered with Region 9 Economic Development District, a local nonprofit, to meet that final requirement.
Region 9 will be doing the outreach work, said Shak Powers, its regional projects manager.
“It (the project) needs to have community input and be community driven,” Powers said.
To get that input, there will be an event on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at the Cortez Sanitation District, 2908 S. Broadway St. It’s open to the public and starts at 6:30 p.m.
Refreshments will be provided. Souder, Miller & Associates and sanitation district officials will be there to provide technical details, Powers said.
Powers also recommended the creation of an advisory board, made up of Vista Verde residents, people from the south side of Cortez, the engineering firm and sanitation district staff to make sure the community is on board and informed every step of the way.
They’d also like to hook up Elegant Hills Park & Estates, another mobile home park in Cortez, to the city’s system, but they’re outside of the shaded, “disadvantaged” area.
They’re considered “partially” disadvantaged, however, so there might be a work around, Powers said.
In a nutshell, the Cortez Sanitation District hopes to secure this grant money so it can replace its aging infrastructure with new, larger pipes. The current pipes – besides being old – don’t have the capacity needed to connect Vista Verde to the city’s system.
Capacity also becomes a concern as the city’s population grows.
The sanitation district would additionally like to incorporate solar energy into its plant; there’s a lot they could do with the grant money, but first they need to talk to the community and turn in the grant by Nov. 21.
“It’s millions, if not tens of millions of dollars. For a disadvantaged community, that’s not just a drop in the bucket,” Phinney said.
