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Woodland Park to mail public notice after state finds record-keeping lapses at water plant
Summary
City staff will mail a required public notice and post social-media updates after a July sanitary survey identified two record-keeping deficiencies at the Woodland Park water treatment plant; staff say the underlying checks were performed and equipment recalibrated before the state inspection.
City officials said Thursday they will mail a public notice to every household after a state sanitary survey on July 3 identified two record-keeping deficiencies at Woodland Park’s water treatment plant.
Kip, a city staff member who spoke to council, said the state categorized the findings as one tier-2 and one tier-3 violation under Colorado’s three-tier structure. He said the first finding involved documentation for periodic storage-tank inspections and the second related to calibration records for a turbidity meter.
The city’s notification requirement for the tank-inspection recordkeeping is 30 days, and Kip said the notice will be mailed on August 22 with a public-deadline of August 30. "We failed to document those inspections," Kip said, adding that staff had in fact inspected tanks monthly during the prior year but had not retained or presented the paperwork the state expected.
Kip said city staff are going "above and beyond the state's requirements" by using the regular mailer plus social media and website posts. He told council that the tanks had been inspected and that paperwork had been completed for the period immediately before the state inspection; the older period that triggered the notice was not fully documented.
On the turbidity-meter issue, Kip said the plant has three turbidity meters and that daily verification checks are performed even though the manufacturer's calibration schedule is less frequent. He said staff replaced and had the new meters calibrated by the manufacturer before the state inspection. "They’re all within the tolerances of what the other ones were," he said in response to a council question about whether the new meters read similarly to the old units.
Council members asked clarifying questions about what a turbidity meter measures and whether inspections had occurred but not been logged. Kip and others confirmed inspections and meter checks were performed; the deficiency cited by the state was the absence of the paperwork for some months in the prior 12-month cycle.
The mayor and council were told the public notification envelopes were already prepared, postage applied, and mailings scheduled. City staff said they will continue to answer resident questions through the city website and social channels while the required public timeline runs.
The city emphasized that the issues cited were procedural (recordkeeping and calibration logs) rather than operational failures that left water quality outside regulatory limits. Council did not take a separate vote beyond receiving the briefing; staff indicated they would return if further follow-up was needed.
Ending — The city will send the mailed notice on Aug. 22 and post follow-up information publicly while it finishes any remaining paperwork requested by the state. Councilmembers said they appreciated the extra outreach and the prompt steps to have manufacturer-calibrated meters in place.
