Goal 1 | Infrastructure

Goal 1: Larimer County works collaboratively to ensure adequate public infrastructure is available to support the needs of our growing community.

  • OBJECTIVE 1 | REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION: By the end of 2019, a regional transportation task force will establish a prioritized list of regional transportation projects with corresponding cost estimates. The task force, led by Larimer County, will evaluate alternative funding options, and based on community polling, recommend a specific strategy for generating additional locally derived funding for regional transportation projects over the next 20 years. By the end of 2021, establish the funding mechanism and begin the implementation of the highest priority projects.
     
  • OBJECTIVE 2 | SOLID WASTE: By the end of 2023, Tier 1 improvements identified within the Solid Waste Infrastructure Master Plan will be constructed and placed into operation to establish core municipal solid waste disposal infrastructure over the next 30 years and achieve a minimum landfill diversion rate of 40 percent within Larimer County by 2025.
     
  • OBJECTIVE 3 | RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE: By the end of 2020, Larimer County will develop a comprehensive rural infrastructure strategy that defines the County’s role, funding level, and targeted activities to 1) address the growing demand for street reconstruction and maintenance within every County subdivision; 2) expand broadband services within unincorporated areas; and 3) improve long-term planning for water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure in unincorporated areas.
     
  • OBJECTIVE 4 | WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: By the end of 2020, Larimer County will complete a regional watershed management collaboration effort to 1) improve mitigation efforts for flood-related hazards; 2) promote water sharing strategies to preserve agriculture and sustain water supplies; and 3) establish management and funding solutions to improve NRCS Dams B2, B3, and B4 based on the high-risk dam classification established by the State of Colorado.
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January 2022

A meeting of the regional transportation technical team was held; representatives from all municipalities and the Loveland and Fort Collins Chambers were invited to attend.  A re-cap of previous efforts was facilitated by our consultant and robust dialogue occurred during the meeting.  The technical team supports further dialogue and development of a standard  presentation that would be given to all communities to determine the level of interest from elected officials in pursuing further regional transportation efforts.

The technical team noted several things had changed since the last efforts, principally  additional State and Federal funding and greenhouse gas rules.

 

February 2021

No progress was made on this goal since the October 2020 Quarterly Update to the BCC. Moving forward, efforts will resume on this goal beginning with either the Technical Advisory Committee or the Regional Transportation Taskforce revisiting specific regional transportation needs and funding approaches. 

October 2020 Update Objective 1- There has been no progress on this objective as efforts were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Larimer County will resume efforts in the future.

July 2020

A meeting of elected officials, technical staff and other interested community leaders and stakeholders was hosted by Larimer County March 12, 2020. From the meeting it was decided that further consideration needs to be given to transit funding, list of regionally significant projects, the amount and duration of a funding request, and how any future funding would be structured and governed. There was interest in continued quarterly meetings of Regional Task Force.

December 2019

Due to voters did not pass Larimer County Ballot Issue 1A, a regional transportation tax, plans to improve transit and road capacity in the area have reshaped Goal 1, Objective 1. Analysis of the next steps in regional transportation will be decided in the future.

 

January 2022

The Tier 1 project currently underway is the north landfill. The Engineering Design & Operations Plan (EDOP) was approved by the state and will now undergo further review by the Board of County Commissioners.  Anticipated date to open the new landfill is 2023.  New equipment is being purchased by Solid Waste to reduce the volume of materials going into the landfill.  The equipment is made by Komp-tec and will reduce all the construction and self-haul debris.  This effort is intended to maximize the remaining space at the existing landfill.  The Solid Waste Policy Council met in October and January.  During the January meeting staff presented a diversion program strategy to all members.  This strategy will enable a significantly greater diversion of materials from the landfill than the original 40% goal.  If all diversion practices are enabled we anticipate an 80% diversion rate.  This strategy will still require the new landfill to be constructed, a diversion facility to be constructed at the existing landfill site including a transfer station, and significant private partnerships to market the materials being diverted.  Staff is currently working with Fort Collins to conduct a third party review of one of the potential partnerships - a waste to energy proposal.

Other projects are currently on hold.  

  • The compost facility is on hold.  There is high regional  interest in composting from the communities and there is a need to deal with fire debris as well.  Staff is working with our agency partners to determine a market for materials.
  • Redesigning transfer facility and working on concepts.  Primarily re-evaluating the location and the size as well as how self-haul customers would access the transfer station.
  • Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste – lots of this material is coming in from self-haulers and commercial customers especially wood waste and metals – looking for potential markets for products – either compost or others.  State may have grants available for evaluation of C&D waste.  
  • Working on a 5-year operating plan to handle food waste and evaluating a variety of options including composting

February 2021

The Central Transfer Station project was to be completed by 2022, so the project is being re-evaluated by the new Solid Waste Director. The new County Landfill is expected to be done by October 1, 2023 and is currently in the permitting stage. A Construction and Demolition Waste project was considered; however, it is on-hold while work is done to identify markets for product. Another project that was consider was a Yard (2021) and Food Waste Composting (SWPC) center, but this project is also on-hold due to a funding shortfall.

October 2020

Financial and permitting delays have occurred since the last update. Work is continuing on the Transfer Station and the New Landfill; however, the Composting facility is delayed.

July 2020

Work is progressing on this objective currently. There may be project delays due to additional information becoming available as design is refined, alternative site selections or with site specific challenges.

December 2019

The Solid Waste Master Plan is moving forward, with the establishment of a new Solid Waste Policy Council composed of area agencies that are part of the plan. Highlights of the plan are establishing a new landfill for the next 30 years with a central transfer station, construction, and demolition disposal processing, and yard waste management, all slated to divert landfill waste from being buried by 40%. Enriching the plan is the Town of Wellington joining the Wasteshed group; the first meeting of the group was held in September 2019.

January 2022
  • Street Reconstruction:  Public Improvement District (PID) Engineer position has been posted for over a week. The posting closes on January 17th and we currently have eight applicants.  . PID Technician position will be posted soon.
  • Staff led a discussion with Engineering, Planning and the LC Attorneys to discuss revising the Development Agreement to improve subdivision road maintenance. The suggestion is to require a PID or a PID level maintenance plan in the Development Agreement. There are some policyl considerations in this approach.  Staff will be working with our attorneys to determine whether an executive session with the Commissioners would be appropriate prior to exploring any further options related to the development agreement. 
  • Updated Pavement Condition Index (PCI) have been compiled and reviewed for each subdivision. Our engineering intern has been working on analyzing the data to create priority lists for marketing the PID program for non-county maintained subdivisions and county-maintained subdivisions. This will be presented to the PID staff next week.
  • Engineering staff y met with Finance staff to discuss potential funding mechanisms for loans on Public Improvement Districts and Local Improvement Districts improvements.
  • BroadBand – Staff and Ditesco met with the three commissioners individually to provide a high level update to the Broadband Strategic Plan.  Staff will be making some final edits and then schedule an update with the County Manager and get direction on how to proceed with adopting the plan. Staff is still waiting on the announcement for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration grant application.  The recent communication indicated the award notifications would be going out by mid February.  Staff is finalizing the statement of work and contract with Poudre Valley Rural Electric Agency to partner on the middle mile fiber build between Livermore and Crystal Lakes.  Finalizing the Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Loveland Pulse and Larimer County to assist in completing fiber services to Drake and expanded into the Sylvan Dale Ranch area.  Staff is investigating additional grant opportunities, including the reConnect Grant due by the end of February to see if we have any viable projects to submit.  Participating in state broadband office meetings regarding the structure of future federal broadband programs due to start in the fall of 2022.  Conducting interviews this week for the Broadband Program Manager position.
  •  Water -Wastewater – Staff is evaluating how to get together with stakeholders and operators to obtain input regarding strategic needs for system development and water needs.  Planning obtained funding from Sonoran Institute and Department of Local Affairs to begin to develop a strategic water plan for the County.  Fort Collins has hired the Brendle Group to develop a regional approach and we will work with them so that our planning is coordinated and identifies a long-term water plan strategy.  An engineering intern has been assigned to the project and is collecting data from water providers to assist the consultants in their analysis.  Lack of low-cost water has also been identified as a barrier to affordable housing options so we will be working closely with our Goal #2 groups in this study.  The planning completed by the Brendle Group might help formulate service areas for wastewater.  
  • A study of water and wastewater treatment and distribution facilities is being conducted for the Red Feather Lakes area using Fiscal Relief Funding approved by the Board of County Commissioners.  JVA, a local engineering consultant has been awarded the contract and project work was initiated in January 2022.  This work is being led by the Health Department. 

February 2021

There are no updates currently regarding the broadband portion of this objective though Mark Pfaffinger, Chief Information Officer, has been assigned to lead this effort. There are also no updates for the water supply and waste-water portion of this objective; Matt Lafferty in the Engineering department has been assigned to lead this effort.

October 2020

The efforts around broadband are continuing and the County conducted a speed test to gather data about where broadband speeds are lacking for community members. Limited work has been completed regarding street reconstruction and maintenance, long-term water supply and wastewater treatment. This objective was given to a new lead in the Engineering department. 

July 2020

The Broadband initiative met with BoCC in February to get direction on forward efforts and more progress is expected to be made. The Water and Wastewater team met with both water and wastewater community partners and workshopped some solutions. A meeting was planned for March but had to be rescheduled. The rural roads team was set to meet in March to discuss the progress that has been made on the action items discussed from the last meeting in November but had to reschedule this meeting. The Goal Steward will identify two leads within her division to support these teams. 

December 2019

Larimer County attorneys, Road and Bridge Department, and Engineering are exploring methods to standardize road maintenance in subdivisions. How other counties in our state approach road maintenance is also being researched. Within this objective is the work on rural broadband, and a report from this team will come later.
Water and wastewater management seeks to plan long-term water and wastewater management in unincorporated areas. Workshops are planned with regional partners at the end of January 2020 to identify Larimer County’s role in that effort.

January 2022
  • Flood-related hazards:  Staff has been informed of the availability of funding to improve capacity during flood events.  The funding is available through a FEMA program entitled Hazardous Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).  Staff will be exploring opportunities for grant funding projects in line with needs identified in our Master Plan.  Emergency flood warning expansion into the Cameron Peak fire area is being pursued.  Poudre Canyon and Little Thompson areas as well.  Funding is coming from the Commissioners  for Poudre & Little Thompson.  The Colorado Department of Transportation is providing significant funding along with two Colorado Water Conservation Board grants for $100k each.  The Big Thompson Watershed Coalition also reached out to request a station on Miller Creek.  The City of Greeley also wants to partner to obtain monitoring information in the Rustic area. Information is being provided to the National Weather Service and shared to regional entities.  Working to make data available to the public real-time and will be moving a base-station out to the new County Emergency Operations Center to provide better resilience/redundancy.
  • Water sharing strategies:  Recent change in state conservation tax credits.  Now a property owner can get a 90% reimbursement rather than 50%.  Will help promote conservation easements.  Working with several municipalities and water providers to evaluate their interest in transfer of water supply with lease-back provisions to agricultural properties.  Staff anticipates more dialogue with landowners and providers later this fall.   Staff will be scheduling a future executive session with the Commissioners to discuss a potential project that may be available.  
  • B-dams: An Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) was drafted however after review we are reconsidering whether an IGA is the right approach for this current situation.  A $100,000 grant was applied for ($80K Federal, $20K local) to help fund the installation of the rain/stream gauges required by the State Engineer's Office.

February 2021

Larimer County has worked to identify areas of flood risk in Larimer County through these efforts: compile Library of existing Master Plans, considering needs for future Master Plans and reviewing regulatory Floodplains (FEMA & Local). The team created a list of all identified capital improvements needed and will prioritize these then work on updating cost estimates and identifying potential sources of funding. The Objective Team has participated in at least five regional collaborations as an active partner to achieve identified outcomes that match the mission of Larimer County and the Natural Resources Department. Discussions are underway with two local water providers to implement water sharing agreements, and two agriculture to municipal sharing agreements are in place. For the portion of the objective related to the B-Dams, the next steps will be: an IGA between the involved entities, implementing a real-time monitoring system and Emergency Action Plan (EAP), and completing final reporting to the State Engineers Office (SEO), NRCS, and the Colorado Division of Water Resources (DWR).

October 2020

Cost allocation options have been developed by SEH regarding long-term operational and maintenance costs for the B-dams; agencies are beginning to develop a framework for an IGA.  Agencies are preparing budget offers to pay for a “flood warning” system.

July 2020 

  • Floodplain/Stormwater- Devin Traff has reached out to all surrounding communities and obtained an updated library of drainage master plans; has started meeting with communities to get their priorities on stormwater projects and how that coincides with County’s list; next steps: updating list of projects, updating costs, prioritizing projects, and identifying funding. 
  • Boxelder B-dams. The State has run their risk-based models and identified these dams as a Category 3 risk, but with a low probability of occurrence. The consultant will be developing alternative solutions with this new determination. At this point the cost for mitigation will be much less than originally anticipated. A work session to present this information to the board will be coordinated once the final recommendations are received.
  • Water-Sharing- Daylan Figgs is leading this effort and is exploring the use of Agriculture Transfer Mechanisms (ATM) and other water sharing mechanisms (fallo farming, deficit irrigation, rotational irrigation etc.) He is working with other leaders on the South Platte Basin Roundtable members and more specifically with Fort Collins Utilities and Fort Collins Natural Areas to explore the conservation of agriculture lands and water thru a water sharing agreement.

December 2019

Funding strategies are needed to stabilize NRCS dams or “B” dams that control flooding. Many of the dams are older and in need of reinforcement while promoting water-sharing strategies and sustaining water supplies.


Board of County Commissioners

200 West Oak, Suite 2200, Fort Collins, CO 80521
HOURS:  Monday - Friday, 8:00am-5:00pm
PHONE:  (970) 498-7010  
EMAIL:  bocc@larimer.org
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