Forward Thinking News and Updates
Cottonwood Newsletters
April 2013
February 2013
SMWSA Members Take Significant Steps Forward with WISE Partnership
Six SMWSA Members Sign Agreement to Participate in WISE
Englewood, CO, March 27, 2013 -- Six members of South Metro Water Supply Authority (SMWSA) have signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) committing their entities to participation in the WISE Partnership. The six water entities are Centennial Water & Sanitation District, Cottonwood Water and Sanitation District, Meridian Metropolitan District, Pinery Water & Wastewater District, Rangeview Metropolitan District and Stonegate Village Metropolitan District. Read More...
Students Learn H2O Efficiency
The Douglas County Water Resource Authortiy (DCWater) came to Cottonwood to teach a generation of students about the importance of water efficiency. Here’s what makes the program a bit different and certainly more fun. Rather than adults teaching the elementary students, the program teaches local high school students, “Water Ambassadors” as they’re aptly called, about finding water leaks, water treatment, water use, and being water wise. We had 40 high school students become “Water Ambassadors” at Chaparral High School, the closest High School to the District. These students then visited the local elementary schools that are in and around the Cottonwood area. By the end of spring, the 40 Chaparral High School students had talked with over 100 Mammoth Heights Elementary students, over 70 of the Challenge to Excellence Elementary students, about 150 Pine Lane Elementary students, and over 100 Cherokee Trail Elementary students.
What’s really remarkable about the program, in addition to the fun the students have, is the number of toilet leaks the students discovered. The results revealed that about one out of every four of the toilets they tested in their homes had a leak. That means of the almost 500 students involved with the DCWater program, more than 100 toilets were found to be leaking! Considering a leaky toilet can waste over 200 gallons a day – the DCWater program in the Cottonwood area resulted in saving thousands of gallons of water in our community. The program is paid for by the DCWater.
So Colorado's Dry. What now?
The Denver Post, 5/5/12
Read Full Article
$760 million flowing into metro water-treatment projects
By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post
Ed Trujillo, project inspector at the Arapahoe County Water and Wastewater Authority, tests the product at a new $30 million purification plant. The facility can remove contaminants that include, increasingly, ones from pharmaceuticals. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post )
Denver-area authorities are embarking on $760 million worth of massive water-treatment projects, to convert substandard water into drinkable new supplies. Read More...
Running Dry
Author: Lou Kilzer, Jerd Smith and Burt Hubbard
Rocky Mountain News
Much of Douglas county's Well Water, Once through abundant enough for a century, could drop out of reach in 10 to 20 years.
When Keith Lehmann moved to Douglas County in the early 1980s, the last thing he was worried about was water.
He had a well dug into the vast and seemingly inexhaustible Denver Basin, an aquifer that experts said held enough water to fill Lake Erie. Read More (Part 1 of 4 par series)...