Town of Empire gets $4M to upgrade water system

The town of Empire, Colorado, with a population under 500 people, recently went without running water for more than three weeks.

Thankfully since then they've gotten the leak in the system repaired and the new well up and running, but now the decades-old water system running through town is getting a big upgrade thanks to federal dollars secured by Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat who represents Colorado's 2nd Congressional District, which includes Empire.

"We worked hard to fight and advocate for $4 million worth of resources that we could secure at the federal level as part of the last appropriations cycle to bring those resources to bear so that a community like Empire could ultimately have a water distribution system for the 21st century," Neguse said. "It could serve them for the next hundred years, maybe not 100, but certainly for a while."

It's a huge worry off Mayor Wendy Coch's back, who navigated the leak crisis last March.

"We brought in tankers with water, people came and filled up their gallon jugs in five gallon buckets and bottled water," Coch recalled. "Long story short, we eventually found that there was a small house that was not occupied and is not occupied probably 95% of the time that had a three-quarter inch pipe broken."

It was enough to bring the entire town down.

"It was losing 30 to 40,000 gallons a day out that little pipe," Coch explained. "We had a lot of snow this winter, but water is like gold up here and we need to use it properly and efficiently."

The new system will help replace aging infostructure and help Empire lock down where a leak is, in the event they have another one. 

"Getting the water meter system to the point where the alarms and such that are built into those systems will be functioning properly," Coch said. "So we would have known a lot sooner where the leak occurred and would be able to trace it down and repair something quickly."