Arvada moving forward with plan to replace aging water treatment plant - Arvada Press

Forty six years after Arvada’s newest water treatment facility was built, the city is starting the process of building a replacement plant, as the Arvada City Council approved a pair of contracts that allow contractors to begin design work and project management to start the building process.

The proposed plant will replace the Arvada Water Treatment Plant, which was built in 1979 and was only designed for seasonal use. The average lifespan for a water treatment plant is about 50 to 70 years, according to the City of Arvada.

Arvada’s City Council has raised water rates for residents each of the past three years in response to aging infrastructure.

At the March 4 Arvada City Council Meeting, Stantec Consulting, Inc. was given a contract for $2 million in the contract’s first year to serve as the owner advisor — similar to a project manager — for the replacement plant. Stantec has completed similar projects in Lynden, Washington; Dryden, Ontario, Canada; and Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., was given a $13.5 million contract for design services for the treatment plant. The company has completed projects involving water treatment plants in San Jose, California; Stanislaus County, California and Woodbury, Minnesota.

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The Arvada Water Treatment Plant is responsible for treating about 16 million gallons of water per day when it is operational, and only serves about half the city — anything west of Indiana Street does not receive water from this plant.

The majority of water in Arvada (36 million gallons per day) is treated at the Ralston Water Treatment Plant, which functions year-round and serves the entire city. That plant was built in 1962 and was updated in 2000, though some repair projects are ongoing.

A project to upgrade solids handling capacity at the Ralston Water Treatment Plant was finished in 2024, and another project to increase the filter capacity at that plant is estimated to be complete by this April, with the goal of those improvements being to keep the plant operational until 2045.

“There are some options on that site to keep the current facility in operation while we rebuild that space, to rebuild portions of it, so we can take more of a phased approach,” Public Works Director Jaqueline Rhoades said.

Last year’s maximum demand day in the summer was 40 million gallons.

A representative with Arvada’s Public Works Department said at a study session on March 4 that the Arvada Water Treatment Plant is not up to current standards, and both plants struggle to process “challenging” water and also struggle under certain seasonal conditions.

“We have four violations in 2024 from two incidents that are directly related to how the Arvada Plant is designed,” a member of the public works team said. “The Arvada Plant isn’t up to current standards — that’s starting to show up as the state is really starting to go, ‘Hey, we want everything to match today’s standards.’

“Both plants struggle every single year under certain conditions, but because we have an amazing team, our customers don’t know that we’ve been struggling,” she continued. “If we get really challenging water, from a flood, or from a fire, we probably aren’t going to handle it.”

Both plants also have multiple points of failure, according to the public works team member.

A few alternatives to building a new plant were discussed at the March 4 study session, but none were seriously explored. The cost to repair the Arvada Water Treatment Plant was estimated to be about $346 million and purchasing water from Denver Water was also deemed to be an unfeasible option.

The site for the new plant is expected to be near the Arvada-Blunn Reservoir, though a final decision is still in the works regarding whether that will be directly adjacent to the reservoir or across Highway 93. That decision is expected to be made this spring.

Groundbreaking for the new plant is supposed to take place in summer 2026, and the plant is expected to be operational by January 2030.

A bond is expected to help finance the project, and water rates will likely go up for residents as well in 2026. More workshops will be held in the coming months.