Click the link to read the article on the Steamboat Pilot & Today website (Suzie Romig). Here’s an excerpt:
March 13, 2025
When the flow of visitors in Steamboat Springs rises during heavy tourism times, so too does the waste, making management of the Steamboat Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant a challenging and often smelly job.
“It’s significantly harder to run a wastewater treatment plant in a resort town that sees a big influx of visitors than in a city where your population is static,” said Jon Snyder, the public works director for Steamboat Springs. “Consistent population makes a biological process easier to manage.”
The plant’s operational status averages 60% capacity, but utilization can range from 26% during “mud season” when Steamboat sees fewer people in town to a record high of 72% in January 2022, explained Gilbert Anderson, plant superintendent. The maximum 24-hour flow into the plant can fluctuate widely during the year; for example, the flow in 2024 peaked at 7.14 million gallons per day on April 5 and was the lowest at 1.87 million gallons per day on Oct. 16, Anderson reported. During specific atmospheric conditions such as on cold mornings with temperature inversions — especially during the busy holiday times of Christmas, New Year’s and Presidents’ Day — the waste smells may be most noticeable to nearby homeowners, Snyder said. The vintage 1980 plant maintains a six-step process inside buildings to try to contain as much odor as possible, Snyder said. Yet, residents say the wastewater smells can be noticed at homes downwind and in nearby neighborhoods