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The same is true for Front Range water utilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have wastewater-treatment facilities that work above and beyond the standards devised for us, so there is no worry that water would be impacted by COVID-19,\u201d said Ryan Maecker, spokesman for Colorado Springs Utilities, where surrounding El Paso County is second only to Denver in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state.<\/p>\n
Those drinking-water standards, established by the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974, are enforced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe water is treated and it\u2019s disinfected, which takes care of all viruses,\u201d said Linn Brooks, general manager of Eagle River Water and Sanitation District in eastern Eagle County, which has the third-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state.<\/p>\n
Officials say water should be the least of anyone\u2019s concerns during the growing outbreak, which has prompted an unprecedented statewide stay-at-home order and has seen most nonessential businesses and schools shut down.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, there are no water shortages. No, municipal water is not a vector for COVID-19,\u201d said Zach Margolis, utility manager for Silverthorne Water & Sewer in Summit County.<\/p>\n
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the coronavirus is thought to spread in the following manner: \u201cMainly from person-to-person between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet) \u2026 through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michelle Carr, distribution and collection manager for the City of Steamboat Springs Water and Sewer, attended a CDC webinar on the topic of COVID-19 and drinking-water systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt said that the coronavirus is essentially very susceptible to our disinfection processes, and that while our disinfection process targets bacteria, bacteria is less susceptible than this virus,\u201d Carr said. \u201cSo, the fact that we\u2019re treating for killing bacteria means that we should adequately be taking care of the COVID virus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buying bottled water during the ongoing pandemic makes no sense, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur water is completely safe to drink,\u201d Carr said. \u201cI don\u2019t anticipate that there will ever be an issue where we\u2019re spreading COVID-19 through the treated potable water system. The bottled water is completely unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks won\u2019t speculate on why people are hoarding toilet paper, but she does have a theory regarding the stockpiling of bottled water.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think (people) see communications on how to isolate at home, how to prepare to a shelter in place, how to deal with emergencies, and those instructions almost always tell you to get bottled water,\u201d said Brooks, adding that some people inexplicably prefer to drink bottled water all the time. \u201cI don\u2019t particularly understand that because our water here is so great, and (bottled water) certainly has an environmental impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staffing concerns<\/p>\n
Various municipal, county and state emergency declarations have been enacted, covering water systems, but officials say those mostly just allow them to apply for state and federal funds or obtain additional equipment if necessary. Most water providers and wastewater-treatment operators are planning for staff shortages and doing everything they can to keep their staff healthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not aware of any specific threats to our water system,\u201d said Aspen\u2019s Rapkin. \u201cWe have taken proactive measures to isolate our operations staff in order to continue to provide this critical community resource.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks agrees that staffing is the biggest concern as the virus spreads.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur biggest risk is absenteeism of our operators,\u201d she said. \u201cBut, that being said, we can run with a pretty lean crew even if we got into some pretty significant absenteeism, as long as it doesn\u2019t hit everyone at once, which we don\u2019t think is likely at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eagle River Water and Sanitation District, which treats and provides water for users from East Vail to Wolcott along Interstate 70, took steps to mitigate against absenteeism early on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that that was going to be our biggest risk and that protecting our employees was the most important thing that we could do. That\u2019s our highest priority \u2014 to keep our staff healthy,\u201d said Brooks, who added that any staffer with a symptom of any kind must stay home from work and not return until they have been free of symptoms for 72 hours.<\/p>\n
Even if smaller mountain utilities were to be hit suddenly by a COVID-19 outbreak and get into staffing problems, other water-systems operators would step in to help. A cooperative venture among all utilities across the state and codified with intergovernmental agreements dictates that if a utility needs assistance, others will provide aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if there\u2019s somebody that has a plant failure, and we have staffing, we will send our staffing to them,\u201d City of Aurora Water Department spokesman Greg Baker said during a call with other Aurora and Colorado Springs water officials. \u201cI know Colorado Springs has been heavily involved in (mutual assistance) as well, so that should really not be a major concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
The desire to hoard bottled water, on the other hand, escapes officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottled-water hoarding is a phenomenon we do not understand, because we bring safe, high-quality drinking water to your house,\u201d Baker said. \u201cWe deliver it for a half a penny a gallon, so why are people going out and buying water? We do not understand that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also, all the plastic is an environmental issue, Baker said, and transporting it around the state or out of state in bottles removes local water from Aurora\u2019s extensive reuse system for irrigation and agriculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, whenever people take bottled water and start shipping it out, you\u2019re kind of losing that reusable component, and that impacts our culture because we\u2019re so used to reusability. So that hurts us there,\u201d Baker said. \u201cIt also hurts us through the fact that, frankly, we have some of the highest-quality water in the state, and why do you need it in a bottle? It\u2019s as irrational as the toilet-paper hoarding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aspen Journalism collaborates with The Aspen Times and other Swift Communications newspapers on coverage of water and rivers. For more, go to aspenjournalism.org.<\/em><\/p>\nvia:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AVON \u2014 Municipal water providers in Aspen, Vail, Steamboat and other communities say there is no threat from COVID-19 in their water supplies and that people do not need to hoard bottled water \u2014 provided that the employees who operate the various water plants can still come to work. And yet, two weeks into Colorado\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 17:44:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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