HomeMy WebLinkAboutExhibit EE - Colorado Rural Water Association letter dated 06.07.2013Garfield County Commissioners 108 8th Street Glenwood Springs, CO 81601 June 7, 2013 Dear Commissioners, Colorado Rural Water Association (CRWA) appreciates the opportunity to comment
on Article 7, specifically section 7 – 204, Water Quality, under the proposed changes to the Garfield County Land Use Code. CRWA has been in existence for 32 years working with public
water and wastewater utilities by helping them with technical and regulatory issues, trainings for certification so operators can run their plants and most recently, Source Water Protection
to help communities protect their drinking water supplies. Source Water Protection was created as part of the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. It is a voluntary, non-regulatory
and proactive approach to preventing the pollution of lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater that serve as sources of drinking water. The program is administered by the Colorado Department
of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and CRWA has contracted with the State to facilitate the development of plans for public water systems. The development of a Source Water Protection
Plan (SWPP) enables a water provider to not only protect their drinking water supplies from potential contamination but also, according to the State, enables a community that has infrastructure
needs to be in better position to obtain grants and loans for infrastructure upgrades. A SWPP identifies: source water protection areas, the potential sources of contaminants, and best
management practices that could help to reduce the risk of contaminants entering the source waters. A sub document to the SWPP, a Contingency Plan, is also created during the process
that links Emergency Managers to water providers and also describes how a community will provide alternative water supplies in the case of a contamination event. Currently, four municipalities
(Town of New Castle, City of Rifle, Town of Parachute and Town of Silt) and eight smaller public water systems in Garfield County that provide drinking water to their homeowners have
developed source water protection plans. Two other municipalities (City of Glenwood Springs and Town of Carbondale) along with two other smaller systems are in the process of developing
their plans. To reiterate, communities that have produced a plan have established both source water protection areas and identified best management practices to
implement, most often in the form of outreach and education, in order to further protect their drinking water supplies. Communities that obtain their drinking water from surface water
sources (such as the Colorado and Roaring Fork Rivers) are the entities that would be most directly impacted by a contaminant event that occurs in close proximity to their surface water
intakes. Also, because underground alluvial aquifers are hydrologically connected to surface water sources, contaminant events that occur above a shallow aquifer could allow for contaminants
to pollute not only the groundwater that supplies drinking water to community members but also perhaps the ground and surface waters of downstream water providers. On behalf of the communities
that have developed SWPP’s, CRWA encourages Garfield County to carefully consider how changes in land use codes can negatively affect the high quality of water and therefore public health
throughout the County. Also, CRWA encourages Garfield County to investigate further the application of the source water protection areas by adding the protection areas on to land use
maps and to allow for land use planners to utilize these protection areas when making future land use recommendations. Respectfully, Paul Hempel Source Water Specialist Colorado Rural
Water Association