Water plant project construction to begin this fall

For decades, Gunnison has relied on a system of shallow wells within town limits for its drinking water supply. However, this fall, construction starts on a major addition to this system; new diversion infrastructure and a water treatment plant on Van Tuyl Ranch that will allow the city to supply water from the Gunnison River.

The decision to build a water plant came from the City of Gunnison’s 2022 water master planning process, said City Manager Amanda Wilson, which highlighted that the city’s shallow well system is highly susceptible to contamination on the surface.

The well system would not be allowed under current state regulations as a way to provide water to Gunnison if it was built today, she said.

“It’s our effort in trying to be proactive and recognizing that, at any point, the state could say, ‘Hey, you’re no longer compliant’ and us doing what we can to ensure that in the long term we have safe and reliable water for our community,” Wilson said of the plant building process.

The plant project, currently estimated to cost between $50 million and $80 million overall, will be one of the largest infrastructure projects in the city’s history.

The process of building a water treatment plant and the associated infrastructure improvements is long and involves multiple phases, Wilson said, extending to and before the 2022 planning work and likely stretching to 2030, which is the current estimated completion date.

The first years of the project focused on design and planning as well as obtaining grant funding, Wilson said.

Beyond technical design and planning, the process also included selecting a location for the new plant, which will be located on an already disturbed section of Van Tuyl Ranch Park, and planning the other infrastructure that will be needed to support the plant, including building water diversion infrastructure on the Gunnison River to obtain water, pipes to carry this water to the plant and changes to the existing water system to deliver drinking water the plant produces to the city water system.

Up to now, the city has also obtained approximately $5.5 million in grant funding, Wilson said, which supported design work and much of the construction of the water diversion.

However, she said that the city has largely exhausted its potential grant funding sources for the project and that most of the construction of the plant will need to be supported by loans.

This year, Wilson said, progress continues both on the ground and in the planning and financing process.

At the end of August, mobilization will start for the construction of infrastructure to divert water from the Gunnison River for the plant, a project Wilson said she expected to be completed by early December at the latest.

Wilson said that this project will involve blocking off a substantial portion of the river with containment structures to allow for construction, although she expected it would have an “insignificant” impact on boating or fishing on the river as there will still be room to pass by the construction site.

The low river levels due to drought could be a benefit for this project, Wilson said, making work in the river easier.

Alongside the physical work, the city is also moving forward with planning and securing funding.

By the end of 2026, Wilson said that the city expects to have design completed for the water treatment plant, a key step that will solidify the costs of the plant and prepare the city to seek loans and other funding.

The city will look to support the costs of these loans through rate increases guided by the comprehensive rate study done by Raftelis it initiated near the end of 2024, she said.

This study looks at the operational and capital costs for providing water and attempts to recommend a fair and equitable structure for rate increases that will support the city’s needs while minimizing impacts on residents and spreading the expense over as long a period as possible.

Wilson said that the city has been working with Raftelis on refining this study as more costs are solidified but that the exact proposed rate structure will be dependent on what loans the city can obtain and what the timeline for paying off those loans will be.

To support these upcoming costs, Wilson said that the city also raised its water rates by 25 percent in 2024, 2024 and 2025 to help accumulate funding and prepare for plant construction costs.

If the city is able to obtain the loans it needs and make the accompanying rate adjustments, Wilson said that construction of the water plant and accompanying pipeline infrastructure would likely begin in 2028 and conclude in 2030.

She said that finding the right funding model and educating the public about the reasons for building a plant have been the greatest challenges so far with the project.

“It’s a little confusing,” she said. “On one hand we say, and we talk a lot about this, that our drinking water is safe. … If there’s nothing broken, why fix it? But the fact is that it’s really only a matter of time until we’re forced to fix it and so, while it’s expensive now, it will only be more expensive later and we most certainly want to do what we can do to avoid fines. So, it’s a double edged sword.

“We don’t like to communicate in the lens of threat to the public … yet we really need people to understand the importance and that it’s critical for the longevity of our community. We cannot have a fire one day that shuts off our drinking water because the contaminants on the surface are impacting. I mean, we have wells that are 40 some feet deep … it’s almost not even comprehensible.

“And so, wanting to make sure that we continue that safe, reliable drinking water and that education I think is, hands down, the biggest challenge for this project. Building a plant actually isn’t that challenging. … Construction is not that complicated, it’s public education.”