Water + Stormwater
Growth Spurt: Colorado Town Overhauls Reclamation Facility to Meet Astonishing Rise in Population
By Thomas Renner
Photos by Jennifer Bakker
The overhaul was needed primarily to keep pace with a population that has swelled from about 300 residents in 1980 to more than 60,000 in 2021. Between 1980 and 1990, the town’s population grew by 1,779 percent. Since 2010, the 22-square mile Denver suburb has seen its population grow 33 percent, according to the US Census Bureau. “We’re not going to be considered the suburbs anymore,’’ said Stephanie Sansom, Senior Project Manager for the Parker Water & Sanitation District. “From Denver to Colorado Springs, it’s going to be one long corridor of homes.” Long-term Project The project moved forward with preliminary studies and evaluation starting in 2016, and design of the facility expansion began in 2017. Construction started in 2019. “Parker has two water reclamation facilities, so there was a lot of evaluation of whether we were going to consolidate plants, whether we were going to take one offline, and what would we do in expansion of the NWRF,’’ Sansom said. “There was a lot of evaluation, and we were looking at new technologies. It was a lot of collaboration to get through design, but we really wanted to make sure that we were planning for the future and weren’t just duplicating what we had.”
A 2020 report from the American Society of Civil Engineers outlined Colorado’s infrastructure and the grades were concerning. The state received a C- overall grade–its aviation infrastructure was the only mark higher than a C–and virtually every aspect needs significant upgrades to meet its fast-growing population. The state’s wastewater treatment infrastructure matched the overall grade, but a deeper dive reveals the depth of the problem. “The US Environmental Protection Agency,” the report said, “estimates that over a 20-year period, Colorado’s wastewater systems will require $4.69 billion to upgrade and maintain systems in a state of good repair.” Colorado was one of the primary beneficiaries of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized $ 1.2 trillion in federal spending over a five-year period. Colorado will receive about $6.2 billion from infrastructure investment. Parker, Colorado realized nearly a decade ago it needed to move quickly to adapt to its rapidly expanding population. A 2014 master plan included the overhaul of the North Water Reclamation Facility. In 2022, Garney Construction completed a three-year, $57 million project that expanded the facility from 2 million gallons per day (MGD) to 3.8 MGD.
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csengineermag.com
December 2023
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