A small city in southern Colorado is making plans for the upgrading of a modern wastewater system, a project greatly accelerated by funding from Washington.
With a population of around 2,200 people, the City of Monte Vista has not had the resources to pay for the project on its own, but now the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development department has announced that it is committing nearly $29.3 million to that purpose.
The funding, via a combination of grants and loans, will overhaul the system connected to the Henderson Wastewater Treatment Plant on the north side of the city. In the process, the facility will be transformed into an activating sludge plant.
The upgrade work will also, according to local officials, improve the system’s overall collection process, a particularly important facet given that Monte Vista has long been challenged by the presence of metals discharged into its lagoon system by the existing wastewater plant.
In early 2021, members of the Monte Vista City Council voted to approve a wastewater master plan that very much included the construction of new infrastructure.
The federal funding is being buttressed by a $538,000 grant earlier received from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs to help defray the costs of a designing the project.
In announcing the funding for Monte Vista, Armando Valdez, state director of the USDA’s Rural Development department, said the project will “help mitigate health risks and increase access to safe, reliable drinking water, and sanitary waste disposal services.”
An exact timeline for when work on the Monte Vista project will begin has not yet been announced, but a city official said expectations are that the work will be done by 2028.
By Garry Boulard
