Since we're a "low taxes uber alles" crowd, we have sort of cheaped out on our sewage treatment system. This causes some friction with the next downstream city, Pueblo, where the people for some reason object to drinking our partially treated wastewater. Tough for them, I say!
These kinds of things are part of the reason why I believe unless you have some sort of political unit encompassing all the regions upriver of a given point there will be frictions. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Well, there was a certain amount of sarcasm in that post about Colorado Springs water. We do have good water, and we do get it from near the headwaters of the mountain streams, and we do have low levels of hormones and stuff that isn't taken out by conventional treatment plants. Conversely, many of the mountain watersheds in Colorado are seriously polluted due to mining waste, so the supply is not perfect.
The issue of waste treatment is exactly as you say, it depends which side of the plant you are on. Colorado Springs does treat its effluent before putting it into the river that goes on towards Pueblo, and CS meets the minimum EPA requirements. But there have been a lot of spills due to poorly maintained sewers, which puts a higher burden on the downstream inlet treatment plants. Pueblo would like to see distilled water coming in, CS would like to dump raw sewage, and the reality is somewhere in between.
Your main point about needing a regional approach is exactly correct. The sins of Colorado Springs--from the view of Pueblo--are similar to the sins of Pueblo--from the view of La Junta. But instead of taking a coordinated approach to the water quality issue, each city tries to optimize its own cost and benefit without concern for the others.
This is in stark contrast to the situation in the region around Las Vegas, Nevada, where the water supply issue is a much, much bigger problem. Some years ago they developed a regional approach that is based on cooperation amongst a number of local authorities. When the problem gets really, really bad, sometimes people do end up cooperating!
