Estes Park board adopts water master plan for long-term system upgrades

The Estes Park Town Board voted Tuesday to approve Resolution 81-26 adopting the 2025-2026 Water Master Plan, a long-range blueprint for water system upgrades aimed at reliability, resilience and customer service. The plan lays out major future work including a new year-round water treatment plant strategy, replacement of aging storage tanks and pump stations, and a multi-year program to replace roughly 30 to 35 miles of older pipe. Staff said the plan’s cost estimates are high-level 2026 planning numbers that will feed into an upcoming water rate study.

Utilities Director Chris Eshelman said the plan is built around three priorities: reliable day-to-day operations, the ability to recover from fires, floods and other major events, and maintaining acceptable water service for customers. He said current peak-day demand is about 3.3 million gallons per day, with the master plan using about 4.0 million gallons per day as its planning level for future infrastructure sizing.

Staff described the existing system as functional today but increasingly constrained by age. During the presentation, utilities staff said the town serves just under 17,000 people as counted by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, with more than 125 miles of pipeline, nine storage tanks and 831 fire hydrants. Distribution Supervisor Jason Lang said about 35% of the system’s pipes are cast iron or galvanized steel, much of it undersized and dating back decades. He said the town averages 12 to 15 water main breaks a year and still has some lines as small as 2 inches, which can limit fire protection and worsen water-quality issues.

The near-term project list includes replacing the Thunder Mountain tank in 2027 after repair efforts were unsuccessful and testing showed the concrete is degrading. Staff also recommended replacing the Big Thompson tank with a larger central storage project that could allow retirement of older tanks elsewhere in the system, moving and replacing the Fall River Estates pump station because it sits in the floodplain, and beginning a long-term annual pipe replacement program. On the treatment side, staff said the preferred path is to pursue a new year-round treatment plant, continue extending the useful life of the Marys Lake plant and eventually decommission the Glacier plant.

Water staff said the town’s two treatment plants are aging and have limited redundancy. Treatment Supervisor James Rossi said recent assessments found the facilities in fair-to-poor condition and said there is "a sense of urgency" to address obvious challenges before a major failure forces more costly action. Mayor Gary Hall praised staff for maintaining an "exceedingly aged system" and said the board shares that urgency.

Trustee Mark Igel said the amount of work behind the plan was "remarkable" and emphasized that the master plan should remain a flexible document that can be revised as conditions change. Eshelman agreed, saying the plan is a high-level guide and that more detailed planning will still be required, including siting work for a future treatment plant and decisions on how to phase and fund the projects. He added that having an adopted master plan is also important for pursuing funding, because many financing agencies require one.

Questions from board members focused on how the work will be paid for and how firm the demand projections are. Eshelman said staff will bring back a rate study in July and that rate increases are expected, though the scale and timing are still being evaluated. He said the town will also seek grants and low-interest loans where possible. Hall said public attention will likely increase as rate discussions begin and asked that future comparisons include how similar communities structure water rates.