The Gunnison City Council approved two water and wastewater projects at its Oct. 27 meeting, including a contract to design an improved splitter box for the town ditch system and a replacement gearbox for one of the town wastewater treatment plant’s screw pumps.
Nick Hill, city water superintendent, presented to the council on the splitter box improvements, which he explained originated from the Irrigation Ditch Master Plan the council approved in May.
He said the splitter box is located on the edge of Gunnison, near Paintbrush Apartments, and is critical to distributing water throughout the system.
According to Hill, staff were requesting approval of a contract with Wright Water Engineers to evaluate the box and develop an improved design.
He said that one of the main objectives of the ditch infrastructure plan was to assess infrastructure needs and develop a framework for prioritizing improvements. Improving the splitter box would enhance flow measurements, support and protect the town’s water rights, and address deterioration of the banks near the structure and the structure itself.
“Rather than continuing to address these individually, we want to evaluate the structure as a whole and develop a coordinated long-term solution,” Hill said.
He said that the structure has leaked in the past, causing flooding issues for nearby properties, and that there are opportunities to improve debris management entering the structure and to monitor flows more effectively. He added that there is the potential that parts of the gate operations could be automated, improving control and reducing flooding risks.
Hill said that staff developed an engineering scope and requested proposals from four engineering firms through the city’s on-call engineering program.
Staff received two proposals, he said, and staff recommended Wright Water Engineers after evaluating them.
Wright’s work would include evaluating the existing structure and hydraulic conditions, developing alternatives for rehabilitating or replacing the system, working with staff to select a preferred approach and working through design stages to a final design, Hill said.
He said the goal is to have bid-ready design documents by April 2027.
The costs of this work in the contract would not exceed $58,763, and the cost was included in the 2026 budget, said Hill. He added that the council would commit only to the engineering work by approving the contract, not to selecting a preferred approach to improving the splitter box or to authorizing construction.
Councilor Loren Ahonen said that Wright is a “very reputable water engineering firm with a significant Colorado footprint,” and asked how much the work in this contract would include evaluating automation options, which could be “remarkably valuable” to city staff.
Hill said that the assessment of automation potential would be “built in” to the contract since it was one of staff’s priorities for a potential new design. However, he added that the degree of automation could vary depending on the approach taken and the project's budget.
In response to a question from Mayor Diego Plata, Hill said the project's scope would extend somewhat beyond the splitter box, as the flow measurement device would be installed on the partial flume upstream of the splitter box, not on the splitter box itself.
“Hydraulically, everything’s connected and so is the control,” he said, adding that the automated control of the system would also include elements beyond the splitter box.
The council then unanimously voted to approve the contract with Wright Water Engineers.
The council also considered purchasing a new gearbox for a screw pump at the wastewater treatment plant.
“One of the wastewater treatment plant’s influent screw pumps is broken,” said Plata. “We need to fix it.”
Wastewater superintendent Donald Getz explained that the oil pump for the gearbox is broken. Still, it is integral to the gearbox case, so the gearbox is the smallest part that can be replaced to return the system to operation.
He added that the gearbox will run without oil and will function until it can be replaced, but that “it’s killed a couple motors” and is extremely loud.
Ahonen said that he was “shocked” by the 24-week lead time for obtaining a replacement, “but also sort of not shocked.”
He also expressed appreciation for the sentence, included in the staff report, “However, some equipment schedules its own replacement on a more immediate timeline.”
Ahonen said this sentence “was the best thing I’ve read in a memo in a long time.”
“If you don’t schedule downtime for your equipment, it will schedule it for you,” said Getz.
“Give the man his gearbox, that’s all I’ve got to say,” said Ahonen.
The council voted unanimously to approve the replacement of the gearbox at a cost not to exceed $62,000.
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