The Town of Firestone is pleased to have settled the litigation with Central Weld County Water District (District). The settled issues, having been memorialized in the Sixth Addendum to the Water Service Agreement, set the stage for future water service and cooperation between the Town and the District.  

The Sixth Addendum is very good for the Town. It provides for a period of reduced tap fees to the District, which represents about $900,000 in value to the Town. Perhaps most importantly, by curbing the longstanding practice of over-dedicating water, the Town realizes a significant gain in the value of its water portfolio. Previous District requirements meant that the Town had to dedicate 120% of the water needed for any particular development/user. The Sixth Addendum reduces the Town’s dedication requirements to 112%. Reducing the dedication requirement to 112% represents about a $30+ million benefit to the Town.  

In addition to the economic elements of the settlement, the Sixth Addendum clarifies some longer-term points of contention between the Town and District, specifically regarding how and when District customers will become the Town’s customers post-annexation. The Sixth Addendum also sets the stage for the Town and District to potentially discuss the treatment and distribution of NISP supplies, which are important to both entities.

The litigation, while unfortunate, was nonetheless necessary to address longstanding issues regarding contract compliance and overcollection of project surcharges. In 2019 a thorough review and audit of surcharge payments conclusively showed the District improperly benefitted by collecting many millions of dollars more than it should have.  

The Town presented evidence that the District failed to meet its contractual obligations regarding accounting and reporting for surcharge revenues. However, as the Court noted, even though it knew about the overcollections as early as 2006, the Town never took any concrete steps to monitor and enforce the terms of multiple agreements properly.  

“Ultimately, this outcome is good for the Town of Firestone. While the events that led to the need for litigation should be viewed as unacceptable by both agencies’ rate and/or taxpayers, the Town is recovering significant and lasting value”,  said Firestone Town Manager A.J. Krieger.

“Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve added $30 million of value to our water portfolio. Simultaneously we are also preparing to retire $20 million of water debt early. Both these actions strengthen our Water Fund. Nobody likes litigation, and ideally, it could have been avoided. But as we look to the future, we know we have bolstered Town internal procedures and financially strengthened our Water Fund.”