Officials: $12 million treatment plant will end Wellington water woes

As plans come together for a $12 million water treatment plant in Wellington, town administrator Ed Cannon is shooting for the gold standard of water quality.

The stuff should be so reliably bland and tasteless that “nobody’s talking about it,” Cannon said.

No top notes of pond scum. No eau de beet. No Clorox aftertaste.

Such tasting notes have long plagued the water supply in this town of more than 9,000 north of Fort Collins, where an algae bloom invades the main water source every summer. The taste and smell of the water have inspired many residents to buy bottled water by the case or install expensive home filtration systems.

The water was especially foul this summer. Levels of geosmin — the organic taste and odor compound that causes the stink — were 10 times higher than they’d ever been, Cannon said.

The bad taste in residents' mouths seemed even worse considering Wellington’s proximity to Fort Collins, where water is cheaper and has won accolades for taste and quality. Many Wellington residents moved there from Fort Collins.

With the days of summer long gone, most residents agree the water tastes better, although qualms remain. In a Coloradoan post on the Facebook group Let’s Talk Wellington, the town’s virtual water cooler, some residents said the water smells and tastes like a swimming pool or “like chemicals.”

Still, town leaders know the return of summer will threaten the return of the algae. So they’ve made changes to the town’s water treatment plant and added preventative measures.

Other fixes include the $12 million treatment plant, which is expected to be operational by April 2021. Joined by the town's first water conservation plan and a search for new water sources to quench Wellington’s rapidly growing ranks, this summer's taste and odor issues could one day be only a distant, unsettling dream.

The cost will be higher water rates.

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The June geosmin outbreak was a catalyst for a water revolution in Wellington, Cannon said.

A month into the job, Cannon had walked into a town administrator’s nightmare. The town’s main water supply, North Poudre Reservoir No. 3, was overrun with algae. The water treatment plant was half-staffed. The water passed health tests but flunked the public taste test.

 “To me, if it smells and tastes funny, that means it’s no good,” Cannon said.

So the town went on the offensive, attacking the algae with copper sulfate sprayed from boats and treating water with carbon compounds. Workers flushed out all the water in the system, all 6 million gallons of it.

Geosmin levels decreased from about 300 parts per trillion to 3 parts per trillion by the end of the summer, Cannon said. The human palate can detect geosmin at 3 to 5 parts per trillion, akin to “a teaspoon in a swimming pool,” Cannon said.

Cannon increased pay for water treatment workers so the town would stop leaking employees. He hired four new workers, bringing the water treatment staff to seven. The town contracted an engineering firm to help operators tackle geosmin.

Taste and odor will continue to be a challenge, but as the town grows, so will its need for water treatment capacity. Wellington has water rights fit for a much bigger town but can only treat 2 million gallons of water a day. Peak demand last summer was 80 percent of that, meaning the town will likely hit capacity by 2021 if the current rate of growth holds. Wellington has tripled its population since 2000.

Ongoing upgrades to Wellington’s well water treatment facility will help the town meet the needs of a growing population in the short term, Cannon said. But the new water treatment plant, which will be outfitted with a high-tech three-stage filtration system, will need to be done by 2021.

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The treatment plant will have double the capacity of the existing plant and is in the initial design phase, Cannon said. It will provide “odorless and tasteless water” to about 22,000 people, more than double the town’s current population.

The treatment plant will be costly in part because of the many filtering processes, designed to reach that gold standard of no complaints. Grants cover about $1.2 million of the cost, and state revolving loan funds cover much of the rest, Cannon said.

Repaying the loans will likely mean water rate increases, Cannon said. The town is also considering a new water rate structure to encourage conservation.

Despite all that work, eventually Wellington’s ample water rights will fall short of the town’s population.

“We have enough water to take us to 20,000 to 22,000 people,” Cannon said. “I think Wellington wants to grow beyond that. The number that pops into my head is about 35,000, at some point. We’re not going to get there without a water supply.”

Wellington is considering becoming a participant of the Northern Integrated Supply Project, a proposal to pull water from the Poudre River to store in two reservoirs for a group of growing municipalities and water districts. Other options include buying water from other districts or finding “non-tributary” sources — water from sources other than rivers.

For the time being, Cannon is happy with what he has.

“I’m extremely proud of our operators,” he said, sounding a bit choked up during an interview in his office last month. “This is what makes me so proud to work here. When this was at its worst, the entire public works department showed up (at the treatment plant) and said, ‘What can we do to help?’

"No one called them. They just showed up.”

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