From: Baker, Bruce <bbaker@cityofwestminster.us>
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2023 8:46 PM
To: Freitag, Mark <mfreitag@cityofwestminster.us>
Cc: City Council <CityCouncil@CityofWestminster.us>
Subject: Fw: recap of direct questions I asked to be answered.
 
Colleagues,

I am sending my reply, not by "reply all", but by forwarding to us and our employee.  Our manager's employees only need to be told what our manager feels appropriate.

Manager Freitag,

I need to have a conversation with you concerning this response.  I would like to have that conversation before our Monday, March 27 city council meeting.

item #1 did not answer my question.  I will re-phrase the question: Please say when, as in the date, that the evaluation of the hard end date of 10 to 20 years of remaining life was made for Semper.   Was it June or July  or August or November of 2022?   Once that evaluation was made, which obviously concluded that spending $28 million on Semper was useful but spending $172 million would only get the same life expectancy, why was this opinion not immediately told to council?

Item #2-  The north and south circle are clearly mis-identified on your provided map.  On the map on the back door of your office the parcels are correctly identified.  On the city website post map of open space the parcels are clearly and correctly identified.  On the Comprehensive plan website posted map the parcels are clearly and correctly identified.

Item #3-  This answer does not address what happens after the hard, end date of Semper (10 to 20 years).  Option #1 left the impression (which was confirmed by our engineers on Jan 23, 2023) that Semper would last a similar amount of time as Options #2, #3, and #4 (excepting the unknown risks of regulatory requirements).  If that assertion had been true, Semper would need very little additional work/expense while all of the other three would need hundreds of millions of dollars of additional expense.

Item #4- While giving reasons for the prior, intimate knowledge of CDMSmith on the project (Smith had been taking contracts since Feb 2019 and has their design of the 30MGD WTT was included  in the Westminster Blvd site, Water 2025 document), my question concerning the bias from authorship/designership of CDMSmith  rendering them ill equipped to make an independent assessment which required the consideration of other sites, was not answered.  Please try again.

Item #5  Thank you for clearly and in writing stating that the City misled the press and public by using a six year old estimate of sewer flows instead of reporting actual, 2017/2018 sewer flows in the BDCSI.

Looking forward to our conversation.

Bruce Baker
From: Opie, Barbara <BOpie@CityofWestminster.us>
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2023 5:37 PM
To: Baker, Bruce <bbaker@cityofwestminster.us>
Cc: City Council <CityCouncil@CityofWestminster.us>; Freitag, Mark <mfreitag@cityofwestminster.us>; Erb, Kodi <kerb@CityofWestminster.us>
Subject: RE: recap of direct questions I asked to be answered.
 
Councillor Baker,
 
The team has reviewed your questions and provided the following responses.

1. Why was upgrading the Semper facility included as an alternative for the last 13 months? This is in regards to the email exchange in which, on Feb 6, the Semper site was definitively rejected because it would only last 10 to 20 years. 

At the beginning of the re-evaluation, there was substantial interest in understanding what the current condition at Semper was. This was a legitimate question to fully understand appropriate next steps for the water plant. The result of that evaluation concluded that rehabilitating Semper will not result in a similar condition or life expectancy as building a new treatment plant. Portions of Semper are beyond their useful life and rehabilitation will not extend the life of the plant to 50 years. That said, portions of Semper were identified as having remaining life if certain rehabilitations are completed. The proposed project at Westminster Blvd, includes the rehabilitation of those parts of the plant that have remaining value. This allows the City to maximize remaining life at Semper and also construct a plant sufficient to cover the failing portions of Semper with more resilient infrastructure.
  

1. Why, in the Feb 10 email, was a clearly inaccurate and specious reason given stating that access to a Westcliffe site would have to be routed through a residential neighborhood?  This claim was also asserted in previous email on Feb 6.

The aerial below shows the properties that Staff is referencing. There may be some confusion between Staff and City Council about which parcels are being discussed. For clarity, the northern property on the aerial (Westcliffe) and the southern property in the arial ( Park) are the properties discussed. The northern property has serious access concerns as was discussed. Also discussed was the southern property that has serious land area constraints and would put industrial facilities immediately adjacent to existing single-family homes with little to no buffer.
 
For reference, this is what was shared in email on Feb 6, 2023.
Westcliffe and Park were considered as part of the Jacob/CHM site selection study. Both sites were determined less than suitable than the Westminster Blvd site.

1. Westcliffe Park:  [The North Circle]

i.This site is an active open space area.
ii.Major roadway/bridge construction would be required for this site.
iii.Potable water pipeline construction would be more costly for this option, extending down Westminster Blvd in a narrow corridor of existing utilities.

1. Trendwood Park: [The South Circle]

i.This site is identified as a future park.
ii.This site is highly constrained for land area and would require placing industrial facilities immediately adjacent to single family homes.
iii.Potable water pipeline construction would be more costly for this option, extending down Westminster Blvd in a narrow corridor of existing utilities. 
 


























  

1. Why were the full cost of bringing all sites to the same daily capacity not included in the pricing of the various alternatives so Council could compare likes to likes?

Portions of Semper have useful remaining life. The goal with all 4 options is to continue to maintain and improve that existing infrastructure at Semper for as long as it is fiscally and physically responsible to do so. There are also portions of Semper that do not have substantial remaining life, and it is most fiscally and physically appropriate to replace those portions of Semper that are nearing failure.
 
In both Option 1 and Option 4, 44 MGD in plant capacity will be maintained. Option 1 includes the rehabilitation of the entirety of Semper including those portions that are aging out. capacity is 44 MGD. Option 4 includes maintaining a portion of existing capacity, retiring those portions that are nearing the end of their useful life, and replacing the retired capacity with a new treatment train on the Westminster Boulevard site. This maintains 44MGD of treatment capacity. There was not inclusion of any out-year projects because that would not have been a 1-to-1 comparison. There are also many unknowns about what a future project may or may not look like many years into the future.

1. On what basis was it claimed that CDMSmith could make a full reassessment of alternatives, considering they had been fully committed to advancing the site on Westminster Blvd since Feb 2019?
   At the time CDM was asked to do the reassessment of Semper and alternatives, there was a desire to proceed quickly with the eminent domain trial expected, at the time, to be in May of 2022. CDM had background with the project that allowed them to proceed with less work up-front to get up to speed. This saved both time and money in engineering evaluation. CDM also has in-depth experience in both new plant design and rehabilitation design that made them well situated to complete a thorough analysis. Engineering firms, including CDM, are regularly hired to find ways to meet challenging goals with limited financial resources. It is important to note that no matter which of the four options were ultimately selected, CDM would still have substantial engineering work to do to complete the project. As industry leaders who were knowledgeable about Westminster-specific needs and also industry best practices with both new design and rehabilitation, it made sense for them to move forward as the project engineer.

  

1. What is the evidence to support the Denver Post published 2018 City claim of a 40% increase in sewer flows?

Staff was able to locate the following summary information on this topic. These bullets were provided as summary by previous staff in November of 2019:

• Wastewater from approximately two-thirds of the city flows through the Big Dry Creek Interceptor Sewer (BDCIS). The interceptor system consists of 22 miles of pipe ranging from 15 inch to 54 inch in diameter, 530 manholes, several flow control structures, and approximately four miles of parallel 30” pipe in the northeast portion of the system. The BDCIS system extends from Standley Lake and Countryside areas in the west of the city and runs generally northeast along the Big Dry Creek corridor to the city’s Big Dry Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility located at 130th Avenue and Huron Street.
• An assessment of the BDCIS condition and capacity was performed and documented in a report in 2012. This report measured flow and confirmed that several segments of the BDCIS were reaching the end of their useful life and/or had insufficient capacity to support continued development and redevelopment in the area. Plans were in place to initiate a project beginning in late 2018 with targeted completion by 2026. However, due to strong economic growth in the City, pipeline capacity was consumed earlier than anticipated. While economic growth is crucial to the City’s economic sustainability, this growth resulted in impacts to the BDCIS system. In early 2018, the BDCIS system was at increased risk of sewer pipe failures and/or manhole overflows if condition and capacity constraints were not addressed. Not addressing the constraints was and is believed to compromise the health, safety, and welfare of the community.
• Leading up to the time the moratorium was recommended, it was estimated that peak flows from development approved from 2012 to early 2018 were projected or forecasted to add 40% to the base flow measured in 2012. This projected flow increase would consume remaining capacity in the BDCIS and increase risk of sanitary sewer overflow. Based on the best information available at the time, a 12-month moratorium on the acceptance of new development applications for projects that increase sewer demand in the Big Dry Creek Interceptor Sewer was approved by City Council on July 23, 2018.

 
Staff assumes that any media reports citing a 40% increase in flows in the BDCIS was referencing these discussions.
 
The moratorium was subsequently lifted on April 29, 2019. BDCIS improvements have been substantially completed. The BDCIS project was sized for development generally consistent with the then-approved Comprehensive Plan – but in order to maintain fiscal responsibility for this major infrastructure – was not sized for major density changes in the basin beyond the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. Staff is not aware of any action necessary for the BDCIS.
 
I trust this information is helpful.
 
Best regards,
 
Barbara
 
Barbara Opie  
Deputy City Manager  
City of Westminster | City Manager’s Office  
bopie@cityofwestminster.us | 303.658.2009  
4800 West 92nd Avenue, Westminster, CO 80031  





 
 
 
From: Baker, Bruce <bbaker@cityofwestminster.us>
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2023 5:12 PM
To: Freitag, Mark <mfreitag@cityofwestminster.us>; Erb, Kodi <kerb@CityofWestminster.us>
Cc: City Council <CityCouncil@CityofWestminster.us>
Subject: recap of direct questions I asked to be answered.

 
Manager Freitag,

 

I wanted to give you the precise questions that I thought I asked you at our Thursday, March 16th meeting.  These are the questions that I need to have answered.  The first four concern current events items and fourth is from 2018.

     

1.  Why was upgrading the Semper facility included as an alternative for the last 13 months?                                       This is in regards to the email exchange in which, on Feb 6, the Semper site was definitively rejected because it would only last 10 to 20 years. 
2.   Why, in the Feb 10 email, was a clearly inaccurate and specious reason given stating that access to a Westcliffe site would have to be routed through a residential neighborhood?  This claim was also asserted in previous email on Feb 6.
3. Why were the full cost of bringing all sites to the same daily capacity not included in the pricing of the various alternatives so Council could compare likes to likes?
4. On what basis was it claimed that CDMSmith could make a full reassessment of alternatives, considering they had been fully committed to advancing the site on Westminster Blvd since Feb 2019?
5. What is the evidence to support the Denver Post published 2018 City claim of a 40% increase in sewer flows?

Thanks

 

Bruce Baker

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