WALSENBURG — With the upcoming month of May containing five weeks, the Walsenburg City Council will meet next on May 6, with the regular meeting set to begin at 6 pm. Walsenburg City Administrator David Johnston said on Monday, April 21, city water crews will continue to flush fire hydrants this week, causing some turbidity in the water delivered through the city’s system. “It is the intention of the employees to work systematically through the town in an effort to minimize the turbidity-affected areas on any given day,” Johnston said in his weekly memo to city council members and staff. “Residents may notice a cloudy appearance to the water that should clear in a short time. To reduce the amount of the turbidity experiences, the city will be flushing only a few hydrants at a time,” Johnston said. The water received in homes and businesses will be safe to drink and use normally, but may look different than usual, he wrote in the weekly memorandum. Other hydrants will be flushed at later dates as time permits. Johnston said between 8 and 10
hydrants were flushed last week and approximately 10 were on the schedule to be flushed Monday. As this work progresses, the fire department will notify the City if there are any flow problems discovered in any of the fire hydrants. Another update concerning the city’s waste water treatment plant was given to council members by Johnston in his weekly memo. Johnston said, “Work has commenced on the reclamation of the sewage lagoons at the waste water treatment plant. The process exposed the fact that sewage from the dog pound and the old sewer plant laboratory continues to be deposited directly into the one of the lagoons. Work to correct this problem by redirecting the sewage through the collector mains and waste water treatment facility (WWTF) will be performed on Monday. While the crews and equipment are in the area, some potable water lines that were deemed as being “temporary” during the construction of the WWTF will be replaced with permanent piping.” In other news concerning water, Johnston reported on another matter that was before the city council last week. “Mr. Witte (state water engineer) has approved an administrative exchange for the APC paving project north of town. APC will be purchasing approximately 3 acre-feet of water at the rate of $20.00 per 1,000 gallons. This should translate to around $ 19,500 in additional revenue for the water enterprise fund, “ Johnston said. Johnston authorized the release of some information in the memo for general publication, as an update on some of the issues related to city operations.
