City of Aspen officials hope to begin using water reclaimed from treated effluent at the Aspen Consolidated Sanitation District to irrigate the city-owned golf course in 2018, but first the city and the district have to obtain a permit from the state.
The city wants to use as many as 1 million gallons a day of reclaimed, or reused, water from the sanitation district to irrigate the course, freeing up more water from Castle Creek to meet other needs of customers in the city water department’s service area.
“It does take some of the pressure off the system, giving us some flexibility in maybe using that water elsewhere,” said Margaret Medellin, utilities portfolio manager for the city of Aspen. But she also said, “This doesn’t eliminate the need for water storage.”
It takes 62 million gallons, or 190 acre-feet, of water a year from Castle Creek to irrigate the 109 acres of turf on the city’s golf course, according to Steve Aitken, the city’s director of golf.
Aspen filed for a water right from the state of Colorado for its reuse project in 2005. The conditional water right was granted in 2011.
The water right allows the city to pump 3 cubic feet per second of treated municipal effluent from the sanitation district’s treatment pond 2 miles up to a 19-acre-foot lined pond on the city’s golf course.
The water right allows for irrigation of 132 acres on the city’s golf course, 80 acres on the Maroon Creek Club’s golf course, 21 acres of open space at the Burlingame housing complex and 12 acres along Highway 82. It also allows use for snowmaking on 156 acres of terrain at the Buttermilk ski area.
But while the city has the water right in hand, and has constructed most of the pipeline to the golf course, it lacks a required permit from Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE).
Medellin is confident the city will obtain the permit, as is a consultant for the city on the project, John P. Rehring, an engineer at Carollo Engineers, a large firm specializing in water projects.
“The engineering for this system is relatively simple, and I think there is still time to implement and begin reuse in 2018,” Medellin said. “The pieces that are more complex are the regulatory requirements and arrangements between the city of Aspen and the Aspen Consolidated Sanitation District to operate the system. The CDPHE has remained hopeful that we can complete regulatory requirements in 2018.”
Bruce Matherly, the manager of the Aspen Consolidated Sanitation District, along with the city’s Aitken, filed a letter of intent to use reclaimed water and a user plan to comply with CDPHE in March 2016 for Aspen’s reuse system.
Matherly and Aitken told the state that the city and the sanitation district “would like to investigate the possibility of using reclaimed wastewater produced by [the district] to irrigate the landscape associated with the [city’s] municipal golf course.”
They also told the state “the small amount of nutrients in the reclaimed water would benefit the turf grass at the golf course” and “the reclaimed water supplied would offset the water that would otherwise be taken from side streams from the Roaring Fork River.”
Today, the city irrigates its golf course with water diverted from Castle Creek via the Holden and Marolt irrigation ditches.
State concerns
Officials at CDPHE raised some areas of concern in response to the application from the city and the district and asked for additional information.
Maureen Egan, an environmental protection specialist at CDPHE, asked Matherly to clarify how state water-quality standards would be met and measured at the golf course pond.
“It would be important for you to provide information demonstrating your ability to meet the E.coli limit,” Egan, wrote in an email to Matherly in April 2016.
Egan also asked, in another email, “is the impoundment at the golf course a water hazard or are there other instances where golfers or other members of the public may have contact with water in the impoundment?”
“The golf course pond is a water hazard as well as a private fishery,” Matherly told Egan, noting the city would like to retain both uses.
Egan also told Matherly that reuse might pose a challenge to the status of the golf course as a “certified Audubon sanctuary.”
“Reclaimed water, depending on nutrient content, may contribute to growth of blue green algae, which may in some instances produce toxins,” Egan wrote. “It is really difficult to predict what, if any, impact this could have on the bird population.”
In August 2016, the city and the district pulled their application.
“Still working on details of proposed reuse plan,” Matherly wrote in a notice of withdrawal of permit application filed with the state.
Next steps
In December 2016, the city signed an $8,000 contract with Carollo so that engineers there could study Aspen’s reuse project and prepare a new application to the state. The city is working on details for an additional contract with Carollo along with CH2M, an engineering firm.
In May 2017, consultants with Carollo and city staff met with CDPHE officials “to discuss the next steps for securing a permit for applying reuse water on the golf course.”
A new application is being developed, Medellin reported. Asked if there is doubt as to whether the sanitation district’s level of treatment for E. coli is sufficient to meet state standards, she did not respond. However, she did suggest that regulatory requirements of reuse are challenging.
“Rightly so, the regulatory agencies are being thorough and robust in their reviews,” she wrote. “Additionally, as experience with reuse grows, many of the regulations and interpretations of regulations are changing.”
Editor’s note: Aspen Journalism is collaborating on coverage of rivers and water with The Aspen Times, the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, the Vail Daily, and the Summit Daily News. The Times published this story on Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017.