City utility officials presented a strategic execution update Monday that summarized several years of planning and recent capital and programmatic work on Englewood’s water, sewer and stormwater systems.

Peter Van Rai, director of utilities, said the utilities group has brought in about $103,000,000 in federal and state loans and grants since 2020 to support a multiyear modernization effort. Those funds, he said, have enabled equipment upgrades, dam safety work, treatment‑plant optimization and a stepped‑up capital program that staff said would have been difficult to fund from rates alone.

Key program metrics and projects

• Lead service lines: staff reported 1,460 lead service lines removed through September and estimated roughly 2,800 total lead service lines to confirm. Van Rai said the program is funded through state sources and projected to be complete by 2026. He noted some states paused lead programs after a recent federal funding freeze but said Englewood’s program funding remains in place.

• Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI): the meter replacement program is about 75% complete — roughly 7,500 meters — with the remaining replacements classified as more challenging installations (crawl spaces, inside meter sets). Staff said meters and equipment are purchased and a contract will be brought to council to complete replacements.

• Distribution and valves: the city has replaced 125 valves and begun using insertion valves on live mains to add system control without shutting large areas of service. Valve exercising moved from contractor work to in‑house execution as staff capacity increased.

• Treatment and plant controls: the Allen Water Treatment Plant has received probes, analyzers, improved chemical dosing, ozone for taste and odor control, SCADA modernization and other instrumentation upgrades; staff said those investments improved reliability and reduced manual interventions.

• Collection and solids handling: the new centrifuge came online recently; a new dredge is expected in the coming weeks to support solids removal from the South settling pond. Staff described a multi‑year solids‑removal workload that will take time to complete.

Financial position and funding gap

Van Rai said both the water and sewer enterprise funds are currently in “strong financial positions” after multi‑year rate and fee work and optimized borrowing. He said the water fund’s funding gap estimate was reduced from about $18,000,000 (earlier model) to roughly $10,000,000 after securing grants and refining project budgets; staff said they expect to close near‑term shortfalls through project optimization but identified a longer‑term structural funding need that will require sustained annual investment of roughly $3 million to $5 million to avoid future backlogs.

Operational and regulatory compliance

Staff recounted programmatic improvements in regulatory compliance, including a newly staffed environmental/compliance program, a cross‑connection and backflow prevention program accelerated from a planned 10‑year schedule to nine months, and installation of dedicated sampling stations for total‑coliform monitoring (33 installed, 27 more planned). They said Englewood has an ongoing working relationship with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and hosted CDPHE officials to discuss compliance status.

Customer interface and next steps

City staff highlighted a modernization of customer billing and online services and a forthcoming water‑use dashboard tied to AMI. They said city ditch mobilization for reaches 3 and 4 began last week, with a ditch shutoff planned Nov. 1 for construction; reach 2 requires further coordination due to railroad and adjacent jurisdiction issues.

Council and staff Q&A covered inspections and testing (city uses private contract labs for compliance testing and does not use the state lab that recently reported analyst issues), the cost and sequencing of moving inside meters to meter pits, and options for in‑house crews to replace many small distribution lines at lower cost than repeated contractor work.

No formal action was taken; staff said they will continue master‑plan updates, refine capital and rate models and return to council with proposals, including a stormwater master plan and an updated rate and fee study.