NOREEN: Won't you be my neighbor?

When Colorado Springs Utilities completes the $1.4 billion Southern Delivery System, there will be history in the making.

SDS won’t be an engineering marvel. It will merely be a 43-mile-long pipe with a bathtub on either end.

But for the many El Paso County water providers, the SDS plumbing will provide a historic opportunity. The providers outside the city limits depend on groundwater from the Denver Basin, an aquifer that is being steadily drained.

The districts depending on wells (Donala,Cherokee and Forest Lakes, to name a few) want to find a renewable supply of surface water that can be delivered economically to their customers. It’s not likely the city will be interested in selling water outside its boundaries, but it’s willing to allow others to use its plumbing system.

“It is something we could all work on up here,” said Dana Duthie,  general manager of the Donala Water and Sanitation District, which serves Gleneagle. “The best scenario is for CSU to become a wholesaler.”

Colorado Springs could transport and treat everybody’s water with SDS — for a fee. Another possibility is the construction of a reservoir by several of the non-city districts.

In either case it would be a big change for the utility, which has never tried to mimic the Denver example.

The Denver Water Department sells a lot of water to the suburbs on the general theory that healthy, vibrant suburbs are good for the big city, too. Colorado Springs had partnered on a couple of projects but has never set itself up as the regional water godfather.

Thus SDS will place the city at a crossroads, said Bruce McCormick, chief water services officer for the utility.

“Those are policy decisions (for the City Council) but we are working through a process whereby utilities could be a regional player.”

In Donala’s case, it would be relatively simple to tie in to the SDS pipeline. Duthie said his district has purchased water rights that could be stored in Pueblo Reservoir, then pumped north through SDS.

Would Springs Utilities charge a premium for the use of SDS to help pay it off, or would it charge outside districts less to benefit the region? That’s a critical question, but it’s too early to answer it.

What we do know is that eventually, the outlying districts’ wells will go dry and some will be asking, “how much is a $350,000 house worth if you can’t flush the toilet?”

Big, bad Colorado Springs Utilities, re-cast as fuzzy-wuzzy Mr. Rogers in a buttoned-up sweater, singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

Now that really would be something to see.

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