At the January board meeting of the Upper Thompson Sanitation District, Board Chair Chris Eshelman welcomed Suzanne Jurgens in her new role as the organization’s district director.
Jergens, who has been with the UTSD since 2014 was selected by the board last year to succeed Chris Bieker who retired earlier this month. She had served as the district’s assistant manager since 2020.
There are three big tasks in front of Jurgens as she takes the reins of the special utility district. One is to oversee the bid process for a new state-of-the-art water reclamation facility slated to begin this year.
The other two are to address an immediate opening on the UTSD’s board due to the resignation this month of board member Stan Gengler, and then to shepherd the organization through a board election on May 6, 2025, for four of the five board seats. Gengler was appointed to the board in February last year after the resignation of Jack Reed who had served as the board’s chair.
New $80 million water treatment plant
The estimates for the new plant, which will sit on a nine-acre site on Mall Road near the present 50-year-old facility, are north of $80 million. The bid process opened on Dec. 30, 2024, and will close on Feb. 19, 2025.
Planning for the new facility began in 2020 but stalled due to the government shutdown related to the COVID-19 pandemic which delayed necessary regulatory approvals.
At this time, initial site work is expected to begin in May 2025. In order for the project to move forward, Larimer County Building Division needs to issue a building permit, but that cannot happen until UTSD announces that a contractor has been named.
The two sanitation districts
The Estes Valley community is served by separate two sanitation districts.
The Estes Park Sanitation District, the state’s oldest special district, was incorporated in 1940. Its treatment facility was constructed in 1964 and serves approximately 2,000 residential customers, and 330 commercial customers located primarily in the downtown corridor.
The EPSD’s water reclamation facility was built in 1976 at a cost of $5.5 million to treat a flow of 1.5 million gallons per day with a peak hydraulic flow of 3.75 MGD. In the fall of 2000, a new secondary clarifier was constructed which added operational flexibility and increased plant capacity to 2.0 MGD.
The district has 29.5 miles of pipe in its collection system, 64 grease interceptors, and three lift stations that bring sewage to the treatment facility where it goes through a multi-step process before cleaned water and the effluent discharged into the Big Thompson River above Lake Estes.
In 2022, EPSD had an engineering study done which estimated the costs of as much as $25 million to construct a treatment plant. At this time there are no plans to construct a new facility.
In 2024, Tony Drees became the district director after the retirement of Jim Duell. Drees has been with EPSD since 1998.
The UTSD was founded in 1971 to provide wastewater conveyance and treatment to the area surrounding the Town of Estes Park which were not served by the Estes Park Sanitation District.
Its 2.0 MGD wastewater treatment facility which was built in 1975, serves more than 4,900 residential and commercial customers in a 44-square mile area surrounding the Town of Estes Park, in addition to the YMCA of the Rockies and the Rocky Mountain National Park, and Eagle Rock School.
The UTSD’s wastewater service area includes 93 miles of collection pipe, interceptors, and three lift stations. The cleaned water and effluent is discharged into the Big Thompson River downstream of Lake Estes.
The UTSD service area is three times the size of the EPSD service area.
Special utility districts
Both sanitation districts are special utility districts funded primarily through user rates and system development fees.
According to the Colorado Revised Statutes § 32-1-101, also known as the Special Districts Act, special districts are local governments or political subdivisions of the state that are created as service-specific entities vested with the financial power to tax and or collect fees, rates, and tolls to fund various types of public services such as fire protection, water utility, sewer, park and recreation, ambulance and hospital services, and to issue municipal bonds to help pay for community improvements.
Special districts are the most prolific form of government within Colorado comprising 62% of all Colorado government entities.
Special districts are publicly accountable organizations which must hold open meetings, properly notice all meetings, keep minutes and other records which are open for inspection by any citizen, hold elections for its governing board of directors, adopt annual budgets, and submit to annual financial audits.
The Board will meet next on Feb 18 at 4 p.m. at the UTSD Administrative Office, 2196 Mall Rd. in Estes Park.