On May 2, Cortez citizens will be faced with a sanitation district bond issue which, depending on the vote, will result in either increased property taxes, doubled utility fees or the cutoff of all sewer tap sales.

Bill Smith, director of the Cortez Sanitation District, said that when the city’s south plant, the most-used of its three plants, hit the 72 percent capacity level, the facility began planning on how to accommodate for the city’s growth over the next 20 years.

"We came up with three possible plans to accommodate for the future growth," said Smith. "The first is to repair all of the old equipment in its present location, the second is to consolidate the southwest plant and turn the other two plants into pump stations and the third is to build a new, consolidated plant downstream in McElmo Canyon."

Smith said that of all the plans, the second seemed to be the most feasible.

The first phase of consolidating the south plant would cost approximately 11 million dollars and would not increase the city’s sewage capacity a great deal, Smith said. The second phase would cost $4 million and would give the city 16,067 additional taps.

"Although it is a lot up front, this would give us the capability to keep adding on and would make life down the road easier and less expensive," Smith said

Cortez Mayor Joe Keck said that if the sanitation district had put money aside all along based on the growth rate of Cortez, then they wouldn’t have to take out a debt.

"If they had better planning they wouldn’t have to enforce this large burden on the tax payers," Keck said.

Terri Wheeler, executive director of the Montezuma County Housing Authority, said that recent problems with the sanitation district have caused delays in the construction of their new low income housing complex which is to be located on Second Street.

"We purchased the property on Second Street with the understanding that our sewer taps would be honored," said Wheeler. "The sanitation district has a clause that says that if the taps aren’t put into service within a certain amount of time, then they donhave to be honored."

Wheeler said that because of this clause, the Housing Authority was forced to purchase an additional seven taps at $8,000 a piece.

"After we purchased the taps, the sanitation district told us that they wouldn’t honor those taps because the additional strain from the complex would be too much for the sewer main to handle," said Wheeler, adding that without an OK from the sanitation district, the Housing Authority stands to lose about 3.5 million dollars.

Smith said that while he had no knowledge of the Housing Authority’s particular situation, it is true that taps need to be put into service within a year of purchase or else there is a chance that they will not be honored.

"If this is the case and the person can show us proof of purchase, then we will give them an 80 percent refund," he said.

Smith said that due to a limited number of taps remaining — 300 at the north plant, 200 at the southwest plant, and 172 at the south plant — some stipulations had to be placed on the purchase of taps.

The board’s policy states that individuals are limited to one tap per year, home builders are limited to six per year, subdivisions containing 30 or less lots cannot exceed eight taps every six months and subdivisions containing more that 30 lots can not purchase more than 10 taps every six months.

"The board had to do this in order to avoid one person from coming in, buying all the taps and hoarding them," Smith said.