April 11, 2019
To: Current Hondius Water Users Association (HWUA) Members (Bcc via email)
Non-Hondius users with possible interest (Bcc via email)
From: HWUA Board members
The HWUA Board recently held a meeting with representatives of the Town of Estes Park (Town) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the planned water project to replace the Hondius system previously reported to you. The Town has indicated that they believe the project will be much more expensive than previously estimated and that they have additional reservations regarding going forward with the project, including difficulties in obtaining necessary easements. As a result of the reservations from the Town, the potential project to replace the current Hondius system is not likely to be completed at the estimated cost and in the manner we had anticipated in the Town’s agreement with the USDA as reported to you in our 2018 and 2017 annual meetings. The project may not be feasible at the Town’s updated estimate of the cost (approximately $5.6 million vs. the previous estimate of approximately $3.6 million). Accordingly, the HWUA Board is also exploring other possible options for our members of the system. We will be working to obtain additional information to report to you at our annual meeting to be held August 1, 2019 (location in Estes Park to be determined and reported to you at a later date) to help us determine the manner in which we go forward.
We are nearing the time for the system to be started up again for summer users. Bill Harvey has been getting meters back in place; however, the recent snow and anticipated additional storms next week will mean that the system will not be back up until late next week (week of April 15th) or possibly the following week (week of April 22nd) as Bill also needs to clean out the tanks on the National Park property and the “road” to get there will need to dry out before he can do so.
One piece of good news is that our operator, AWWS, that took over for Frank Huffman last year, has conducted water testing through December 2018, with no problems to report.
As previously indicated, we hope to have additional information and options to report to HWUA users in our upcoming annual meeting on August 1st, so if possible, please plan to attend the meeting (location to be determined and reported to you at a later date). Thank you.