Low water, rising costs

It will take five years and more than $30 million before Rawlins’ water woes are solved, according to City Engineer Austin Gilbert. If the city doesn’t increase water rates, they could miss out on nearly $3 million in public funding towards needed improvements.

During the September 6 meeting of the Rawlins City Council, Gilbert gave a nearly 30 minute presentation explaining the upcoming phases, their cost and the need for additional funding.

Funding a fraction

According to Gilbert, while a number of the projects slated for the water infrastructure were included as One Percent Specific Purpose Sales and Use Tax (6th penny tax) project, they are drastically underfunded.

“We have so much 6th penny funding coming to the city to pay for these infrastructure repairs, but in all of the 6th penny projects that I’ve seen that have been identified we have massive shortfalls,” said Gilbert. “It’s only covering a third of the cost of each project.”

Gilbert told the governing body the reason 6th penny funds were only covering a fraction of these infrastructure upgrades was because the City chose not to bond. It isn’t the only municipality not to do so, either. Saratoga, which is currently undergoing a repair of the water main on Spring Avenue, also chose not to bond their 6th penny funds.

Phasing

It will take all of five years across six phases to solve the current water issues Rawlins is facing, said Gilbert. The first phase, which was to repair and replace 10,000 feet of wood stave pipeline Sage Creek Springs, is 95 percent complete at a cost of $2 million.

With the five other phases, which includes repairing and replacing more wood staves and the City’s water towers, Gilbert said the timing of the phases was crucial to the success of the project. While the tanks were technically listed as phase six, he stressed the importance of having proper storage for the other phases in the project.

“I will tell you now, the tank farm is what saved us probably twice this year from going into a low-pressure situation because of the volume that we’re able to store in that system because we do not have a reliable water source coming to the water treatment plant,” said Gilbert. “If we go to start working without storage, we’ll be out of water very quickly.”

The cost of replacing one tank, which holds 7.5 million gallons of water, is $6 million. To replace both would be closer to $12 million, said Gilbert.

The replacement of the tanks is the highest cost in the project. A close second is the work on the wood stave pipeline in Sage Creek Basin Springs and Beaver Creek Springs. This would come to a cost of $5 million, with 80 percent of it needing to come from loans, said Gilbert.

The transmission lines from the basin springs to the water treatment plant is estimated to cost $4 million, but Gilbert said there was a “high likelihood” the majority of that could be covered by a $3.1 million Community Block Development Grant.

The cemetery water line is estimated to cost $3.5 million and the transmission line from the water treatment plant to Spruce Street is estimated to cost $2.3 million.

The pipeline from the water treatment plant to the city is ductile iron, said Gilbert, and cannot be protected cathodically, which controls the level of corrosion on a metal surface. According to Gilbert, this project would be paid for through loans and water rate increases.

“If we waiver on these rates and decide to go at a lower rate, and it delays the process of the rates being approved, we will be accountable for losing $3 million in public funding that would be available,” said Gilbert.

Not Done Overnight

Since the water crisis Rawlins experienced earlier this year, frustrations have appeared to run high for residents due to ongoing water restrictions throughout the summer. While phase one of the project is nearly complete, Gilbert said the City has done very little in the big picture of the overall project.

“We have not done much since March in terms of actually improving the system to make it reliable and sustainable,” said Gilbert. “This is not something that can be done overnight. I know that people wish this could be fixed today, but this is a five year improvement. It’s going to take all of five years before we have any resiliency.”

The next meeting of the Rawlins City Council will be at 7:30 p.m. on September 20 at Rawlins City Hall.