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Photo by Hank Lohmeyer A plow cut through a snow bank near Lands End turnoff on Highway 65 gives an idea of the accumulated snowpack on Grand Mesa last weekend. For local water managers — charged with the tasks of forecasting, hedging forecasts, reacting to changing conditions, maintaining systems and delivering water — more snow is better. “It takes a lot of snow to get 30 inches (of water) and fill our reservoirs,” says a Grand Mesa Water Users official.The Surface Creek Valley's three domestic water providers, and one that serves residents of the Ward Creek drainage, share common problems and concerns as they work to provide affordable, clean water to their customers and stay in compliance with strict health regulations.

Representatives from Upper Surface Creek Domestic Water Users Association (USC), the Town of Cedaredge, the Town of Orchard City and Coalby Domestic Water Users Association shared details of their systems with attendees at the two Surface Creek Valley water workshops last week.

The Upper Surface Creek Association supplies domestic water to 1,005 taps and about 2,700 customers. The company is not a government entity. But, like Coalby, it is a private association. Upper Surface Creek serves customers on Upper Surface Creek, and on Cedar and Redlands mesas, through 100 miles of water pipeline.

Upper Surface Creek takes its treatment plant feed stocks of raw water from Surface Creek. The association once shared water treatment facilities with Cedaredge. In 2005, USC built its own treatment plant but still owns 20 percent of the Cedaredge plant. It maintains line interconnects with Cedaredge's system for system redundancy.

The Town of Cedaredge's water collection system takes its supplies from springs and reservoirs high on the public lands above town. The water flows in its collection pipelines to the treatment plant and, when treated, is stored in the two one-million-gallon storage tanks just above town on Highway 65.

Cedaredge water customers used 578 acre-feet of treated water in 2011, and they used 605 acre-feet during the 2012 dry year, reported Dave Smith, public works director.

The sprawling water system of the Town of Orchard City received a major upgrade last year when the new West Main transmission line was brought into service. The new line provides pressurized, treated water to customers and has computer controls that ease management of the water utility and decreases waste, said Mike Morgan, public works director for the town.

Coalby Domestic Water Users Association serves customers in the Ward Creek drainage west of Cedaredge. The Coalby system was established in 1975 serving 40 to 50 taps. Today it serves 132 taps, 113 of which are active.

The association has upgraded its plant which was built in 2004 above Uintah Road to meet health department regulations.

Coalby collects water from three source springs high on the south side of Grand Mesa. Peak flows average 120 to 150 gallons per minute in summer, and 60 to 70 g.p.m. in the winter. The annual average is about 91 g.p.m. Coalby's customers use an average of 18 g.p.m., which translates to 0.04 cubic feet per second.

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