Parker council approves easement to Parker Water for sanitary force main at Tallman Park

Parker Town Council on second reading unanimously approved an ordinance to dedicate a 30-foot sanitary sewer easement to Parker Water and Sanitation District to install a 4-inch sanitary force main from the Parker Water wellhouse west of the athletic fields at Tallman Park to an existing sanitary main north of the park.

The easement, presented by town engineering staff, is tied to planned upgrades at the Parker Water wellhouse. Alex, a town engineering presenter, said the pipe is needed to “convey waste from that site over to the sanitary sewer main to the north” and that Parker Water requested the easement in advance of the related site plan because “this line needs to be in before the building.”

Town staff and the Parker Water representative said the line will be installed without open trenching across Tallman Gulch: the segments under the gulch and the trail will be bored or tunneled to minimize disturbance. EJ Katsoulas, an engineer with Tetra Tech contracted by Parker Water, explained the line’s purpose: “The intent of the design is to build this annex on top of the existing well house, which removes iron and manganese from the groundwater… As the iron and manganese accumulates in the well house, periodically, you have to backwash those filters and then take the gunk somewhere. So this sanitary sewer is intended to transfer that.” He said the solids will be held in a wet well and pumped through the force main during off-peak hours.

Staff said construction access will use the existing Parker Water access road, avoiding park amenities and fields, and that all restoration and revegetation will be secured through the town’s grading-permit process, including financial security until revegetation meets the town’s standard (75% of pre-disturbance cover). The easement is proposed as part of an ongoing nonmonetary exchange of right‑of‑way interests between the town and the district; no direct cash payment was proposed for this dedication.

Council members asked about park impacts and were told there should be no disruption to programming because the access road stays south of the fields, and equipment staging could be coordinated with the parks department. The council voted unanimously to adopt ordinance number 1.660 on second reading.

The ordinance is limited to the underground easement dedication; a separate site‑plan amendment for the wellhouse building and surface improvements remains under review and will return to council for approval as required.