MANITOU SPRINGS — The city of Manitou Springs has secured funding to build a second water tank next to the existing Mesa tank. No Manitou Springs ratepayers will be paying for the addition according to the city.
"It's going to be one of the most critical projects that the city of Manitou Springs is going to be doing for a while," said Public Information Officer for Manitou Springs Alex Trefry.
The city received a grant of $953,600 from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs' Energy/Mineral Impact Assistance fund and $1,354,775 from the American Rescue Plan Act.
"Secured funding allows us to do is pre-order that tank, there's a long lede time for those," said Trefry.
The new tank will be built next to the original Mesa tank, utilizing the same infrastructure and making the two of them interchangeable when repairs
are necessary.
Manitou Springs has had to ask people to conserve water 3 times this year: once in February, Once in May, and Once in June. The city says that happens when there isn't enough water supply in the current tank, or the water treatment plant can't treat water fast enough.
"So the [French] creek runs directly into our treatment plant, so if we have high periods of rain where the sediment and runoff is really stirring it up and making it murky water, that makes it so much harder for the treatment plant to produce the treated water our community uses," said Trefry.
Another benefit to the second tank is the additional help it will give first responders when fighting a fire of any size.
"That takes a lot of water to do, so if they do that, this allows them to have a lot more storage in where if they do use all that water to put out the fire, there's still a lot of room for the daily needs of our residents," continued Trefry.
The project is still being planned, so there is no timeline for completion.
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