C Lazy U Ranch’s water comes from natural springs from the hillside at the ranch, making for some of the purest and cleanest water on earth. You can literally drink the water out of the springs, but Colorado state requires that you treat the water for safety regardless of how naturally pure it is. In addition to the two natural springs, there are two backup wells to draw water, which assures C Lazy U’s guests that there will always be an ample water supply.
The legal water rights and the engineering that goes behind developing and creating a large public water system is extremely complex and expensive. There are four sources of water all connected to the main treatment system, featuring sensors every step of the way to gauge each location. When one area is drawn down, a second source automatically kicks in.
Once the water is drawn from the springs above the ranch or pumped up the hill to the main treatment facility, it goes into a series of storage collection points, beginning with raw water storage. It then enters the complex treatment process.
A State-of-the-Art Water Treatment Facility
The treatment facility is state-of-the-art, and the inside looks something like the interior of a submarine. There are pipes, display boards, loud noises, blinking lights and treatment equipment laid out in a very methodical and complex system. The water is constantly monitored and tested for turbidity and then chlorinated for safety. The entire system, a smart water system, has alarms that can be dispatched to the ranch’s state-certified water operator on his cellphone. That same cellphone can make changes remotely and act as a control board.
The ranch has an amazing team of engineers that check levels throughout the day and act as first responders if issues arise. The system has complete redundancy: every step has two or more of everything, so the system never goes down. If we lose power, everything can run on a backup generator.
Once the water is treated, it is stored in a number of storage tanks that release the water on demand and in sequential order to ensure that it is never goes stale and is the highest quality. The ranch can go through as much as 22,000 gallons on a peak demand day; the 32,000 gallons in total storage on the property allow for these variations in demand. There is always a source feeding new water into the system, and it can operate on demand if needed.
Prior to the new treatment facility, the ranch upgraded all the water lines through the property as the old water lines were losing thousands of gallons of water each day. This substantial project was a major improvement, though the guests never saw. The ranch chose to do underground directional boring instead of trenching the areas around all the ranch buildings, a method that costs more but is extremely precise. With underground directional boring, you can run the lines hundreds of feet right to the correct connection point under the cabin without ever disturbing the ground above it.
The treatment facility was completed in late 2017, and the guests will enjoy this upgrade for the next 50-75 years in operation. The combination of the new treatment facility and the miles of underground piping helps the ranch save thousands of gallons of water each day that the old system was losing. The new water is cleaner and safer than ever, and our guests truly enjoy the fresh and crisp taste of the spring water delivered right to their cabin.
