Cottonwood Improvement District is a wastewater collection agency.  Our goal is to set the standard in the industry for the operation and maintenance of a collection system and to protect the environment and public health.  This is accomplished by maintaining the infrastructure of the collection system to prevent sewage from backing up into homes or overflowing from manholes onto public roadways.  It is collected and transported through a network of mainlines and trunk lines to the Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility for treatment and final disposal and/or reuse of the treated water and bio solids for beneficial use. 

The District presently serves over 24,000 customers with an estimated population of over 125,000 people.  This does not include the population of Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, which we also serve.  We presently maintain approximately 300 miles of collection and trunk lines with over 7,000 manholes.  These numbers are increasing each year as new construction continues. 

In the past two years, the District has invested over $7,000,000 in construction of new lines within the District to relieve overloaded conditions in specific areas.  Cottonwood’s infrastructure is aging.  As a result, we are under constant pressure to find cost effective repair options to reduce infiltration, which increases treatment plant loads, adds treatment costs and increases the risk of sanitary sewer overflows.

Our preventative maintenance program increases each year as the District ages.  One third of the District sewer lines are over 50 years old and one third of the District sewer lines are over 30 years old.  The repair and replacement of old lines increase yearly.

Operation costs have increased.  Our fuel cost alone has doubled in the past three years.  It will be necessary for the District to increase its service fees as costs increase.  EPA and the State set the standards that the wastewater must meet before discharging to the receiving waters of the State of Utah.  These standards result in an increasing cost of treatment. 

The Board of Trustees and management of the District are doing everything possible to keep down the cost and operate as efficiently as possible and still provide the service we have pledged to provide to our customers.