Mr. Martin,

When Mary received your first email I asked her to invite you in to meet with me and offered to take you on a tour of our reservoir and our treatment facilities. I did this because of the frankness of your questions, and because you were suggesting some rather serious consequences for our employees. Sometimes a face-to-face meeting is a more efficient way to exchange information so that both parties leave with the feeling that all of the issues were fully addressed, and that there are no remaining misunderstandings pertaining to the issues. However, your request is for me to respond to your questions with an email in-lieu of a meeting, so I will do the best I can to address them one-by-one. I will assume that your questions pertain to primarily our residential customers where applicable.

These are all great questions and I’m sure there are many other residents that would like to see the answers to your questions as-well, so because your email is considered public information at this point I have copied the Trustees and the press.

Your first question: “Will Berthoud residents be reimbursed for having to buy bottled water and in-home water treatment kits? ”

At this point I have received no direction from the Board to offer free bottled water to the community, or to reimburse anyone for their cost to purchase bottled water. The same response holds true for in-home water treatment kits.

Berthoud currently sells water to residential customers for $3.93/1,000 gallons. The equivalent cost to purchase 8,000 pints (1,000 gallons) of bottled water at a store would be approximately $1,667 plus tax ($1,784). If the average family’s recommended consumption is 8 pints of water per day per occupant, and there are 2.7 occupants per household on the average, that would be 21.6 pints per day times 14 days (the water was pretty bad for about 2 weeks) which would be 302.4 pints per household at 22.3 cents per pint, which in-turn would be $67.44/household for 2 weeks of bottled water. (Berthoud is selling 302.4 pints of water to residential customers for 14.86 cents at our current rate of $3.93 per 1,000 gallons) If we refunded $67.44 to 1,977 residential customers to reimburse them for purchasing bottled water it would cost Berthoud a total of $133,329 for 2 weeks of ill-smelling water. If you feel the refund should be for a longer period of time, it is just a matter of doing the math! To recover the lost revenue, because we having difficulty making ends meet financially in the water utility, it would take a rate increase of 11.7% next year to recoup the $133,329. If we don’t recover the lost revenue we won’t be able to accumulate enough funding to deal with the algae, and it could only result in an endless cycle of rate increases to buy bottled water at $672.85/1,000 gallons and in addition we would never have the financial wherewithal to fix the real problem.

I know your request for a reimbursement seems like a simple one, and it therefore only seems reasonable for us to accommodate the customer financially for a what is ultimately a situation that is our responsibility. However, by doing the math I’m sure you can see that it only results in higher rates and a water quality problem that never gets fixed!

Your second question: “ Will Berthoud residents continue to pay a PREMIUM for this disgusting water, or will or water rates be significantly reduced?”

If by “PREMIUM” you mean that the residents of Berthoud have high water rates compared to surrounding communities, you are very correct. We do have high water rates in Berthoud which is due primarily to: 1) the high cost of chemicals needed to treat the water as a result of the current water delivery system and the condition of our reservoir, 2) the amount of debt we have accrued against the water treatment plant. This cost is not going to change unless we can invest in infrastructure that will change the delivery system and also clean up the reservoir which will in-turn lower our treatment cost. Then, we either need to retire the outstanding debt or find more customers to sell water to which spreads the debt burden out among more users. The plant has the capacity to provide water to a community twice this size and is currently being very underutilized. You are also correct in that our water has a reputation for becoming disgusting at various times of the year, for which we accept full responsibility and are currently working to correct. However, you are not paying any sort of a “premium” that has been associated with outstanding water quality even though I agree with you that for the amount you paying it would be nice to have great water. The fact is, per the current rates (even as high as they are) we are having a difficult time setting aside enough funding to institute a permanent fix for the water quality issues.

Your third question: “When will the water situation be permanently fixed? ”

There is some good news and some bad news pertinent to this question! Because this situation (water quality issues) has apparently been going on for many years in Berthoud I’m sure there has been some resolve proposed in years prior to 2010, and I’m also sure that each time instituting a solution had the same difficult issue to deal with in-the-end, which is adequate funding. Rates are already very high due to our treatment costs and the outstanding debt, so the bad news is that trying to raise funding by “biting the bullet” and increasing rates again would be a very difficult for the community to accommodate. The good news is that because the water quality is my responsibility, I am very motivated to find and implement a “permanent” solution to this problem and we are already making some headway. My first goal is to deliver a “quality product” to the community on a “consistent” basis, and my second goal is that over time we can reduce operating costs and/or increase sales which will reduce the price of water. I believe I can accomplish the first goal of vastly improving our water quality on a consistent basis in a short amount of time, but please don’t expect “perfect water” in the next few months because this can only be accomplished over the long-term and will require “adequate funding”. We have already made a temporary change in the treatment process which I feel began producing positive results as-of last weekend; it isn’t “perfect” yet, but I think it is a big improvement. We have an infrastructure improvement that will take place at the plant in the next 3 – 5 weeks that will replace our “temporary” modification, but any further improvements in water quality from this specific project will be minimal. Again however, the good news is that in the future we will be much better equipped to deal with the algae issues should they occur again either this fall or next spring. The next two changes that we plan to make in the treatment process will be more expensive but both will offer more dramatic results in our attempt to improve the water quality. The first of the 2 improvements could be made as early as this fall, providing we can find a way to fund the project, but the second (which would offer the most dramatic result) would be closer to a year away and can only be accomplished with “additional” funding. A more direct answer is that we are still working on what a “permanent fix” consists of because that may include large projects such as dredging the reservoir, but with the information currently streaming in from our outside resources we are at least beginning to get a pretty good handle on what changes have to be made to “permanently” fix the problem.

Your fourth question: “Will those who are responsible for the water situation be held accountable and fired, or will they resign? ”

I have no intentions of firing anyone or asking for resignations, and do not hold any individual currently on our staff as being responsible for the Town’s long-standing problem. The employees are working with all of the tools that are currently available to them, and are not responsible for the infrastructure issues that were created long ago by other employees or other “outside” individuals or agencies. “Hindsight” is always a wonderful thing to base a “current opinion” on, so I am reluctant to critique the decisions of others when I was not in their shoes when the decision had to be made. That being said, there are some things we now believe should have been done differently and we are working to correct them. Some appear to be easy to resolve, and some are more difficult and will take some time. It would be very inappropriate to place blame with one of our employees for this situation, and if the blame lies with anyone it is with me. I thought we had taken steps back in January that would prevent this from happening this summer, but as I said in the paper last week even the best laid plans don’t always work out like you would like them to. One thing I do know for sure, is that I “definitely” do not want this to happen again and I am going to push for a permanent solution as I mentioned above.

Your additional question: “Who do I believe when it comes to the issues, the local paper or Channel 9 News, and do we know what the real problem is?”

Please, if you have questions do not hesitate to call me or other representatives of the Town. The information provided by 2 of the local TV stations in the last few days was somewhat “sensationalized” and in “my opinion” did not produce a fair and balanced report on the problems that Berthoud has experienced with our water quality. Only 1 station actually took the time to ask pertinent questions and consequently presented a fair and balanced representation of our current situation and what we have done to remedy it. Enough said on that!

On the issue of “do we know what the real problem is,” and when can we expect to see a permanent solution; the answer is that I believe we do know what the problem is and I am convinced that we can make substantial progress on fixing the majority of the issues once and-for-all in the near future. We will then budget to fix any outstanding infrastructure issues over a period of time as we measure the results of the initial projects and weigh their effectiveness against the investment costs. We still have consultants working on the issues at the present time and their findings are preliminary to-date, so until I have written reports from the consultants and have gone over this data with our Board of Trustees I am not at liberty to share this data.

I would present some “math” to you again as a possible solution to the funding problem and would like to hear your opinion. If we were to identify one project that we know would significantly improve our odds of maintaining good water quality and it was under $100,000, and a second project that was more in the range of $500,000 that would almost guarantee an end to the tainted water issues, would you be amenable to a monthly charge (a flat fee) on your utility bill for a period of 18-24 months to designated “specifically” for these projects and would go away when the projects were finished, if it meant that a permanent solution was in-hand? Again, these numbers are very “preliminary” but I am fairly confident that each will have dramatic results in water quality.

I really appreciate the questions and hope I have resolved your issues. If you have further questions please do not hesitate to call or send another email.