From the Littleton Independent (Tom Munds):
The plant is jointly owned by the cities of Englewood and Littleton. It is a regional facility that serves the foothills area from Interstate 25 to the foothills and from Highlands Ranch north to Evans Avenue. The plant provides treatment services to about 160,000 accounts, which serve about 300,000 people. A recent four-year modernization and expansion project cost more than $113 million and expanded the size of the plant by about 39 percent. However, more stringent federal and state regulations are coming that require additional disinfection treatment. Plant officials and representatives of the engineering consulting firm met with both city councils to explain how the evaluation was done that resulted in the recommendation to install the ultraviolet system at a cost of about $10 million. Stu Fonda, utility director, said the bonds to install the system would be paid for through small increases in service fees that would total about $4 to about $12 a month.
The team met with the Littleton City Council on Feb. 8. The council debated the issue and then the consensus was to seek a second opinion. “We wanted a second firm to look at the proposal and tell us whether the change to a different disinfection process is necessary and, if it is necessary, is the ultraviolet system the best way to go?” Littleton Mayor Doug Clark said…
The types of disinfection evaluated included chlorine dioxide, ozone, peracetic acid, chlorination and ultraviolet. Kurt Petrik, supervising engineer for consultant Brown and Caldwell, said the ultraviolet system was selected because it offered significantly more benefits than the other systems evaluated. Some of the benefits included no toxic disinfection by-products, elimination of the need to store and handle toxic chemicals and a lower operating cost. Fonda said the ultraviolet system’s operating expenses would be about $70,000 less than now spent to operate the chlorine-based system.