Model North Weld County Water District Master Plan

Over the past few years, certain areas within the District’s service area have experienced significant growth as a result of higher density residential and commercial developments.

In most of these growth areas, the District’s existing infrastructure was not sized to support the water demands generated from the higher density developments. In order to evaluate the sufficiency of the existing system to serve new water customers, the District has historically relied heavily on their water system hydraulic model. This hydraulic model has been used by the District to provide developers and owners information on needed infrastructure improvements. Typically, these improvements involve water line extensions and water line upsizing that are required to adequately serve new development and not adversely affect the operations of the District’s overall distribution system.

As of 2017, the District’s existing hydraulic water model was several years old, included proposed infrastructure that was not yet constructed, and had been selectively updated over time with new water demands. Based on the condition of the current hydraulic model, the District was no longer confident that their model could be relied upon to provide realistic modeling results. Based on development driven infrastructure decisions being based on the results of an outdated water model and the continued growth within the service area, the District determined the need to develop an updated existing conditions water model. The goals of developing a reliable existing conditions water model were to analyze the existing system for deficiencies and put the District in a position to more confidently determine development driven infrastructure requirements.

As a result of these needs, the District contracted with Providence Infrastructure Consultants (PIC) to develop an up-to-date, existing conditions water model and evaluate the system for any operational deficiencies or concerns. This technical memorandum (TM) summarizes: 1) the existing system’s infrastructure, 2) the overall methodology used to develop and validate the new model, 3) the identified existing system deficiencies, and 4) the recommendations on future water system planning.