(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Colorado Springs Utilities (Springs Utilities) has been serving the Pikes Peak Region for 101 years. It provides electricity, natural gas, wastewater, and water to over half a million customers in El Paso County.
FOX21 News took part in a ride-along with Travas Deal, the Chief Executive Officer for Springs Utilities, as he visited the facilities and discussed the plans for future services.
“Everybody needs us to be behind the scenes doing our job because they can’t have a life, they can’t be safe, you know, without us doing our job,” Deal said.
Deal has been at the helm of Springs Utilities for two years; he’s followed in the footsteps of his father, who worked at a utilities plant for more than three decades in Indiana. As a former Marine, Deal looks at his job as a continuation of a call to service.
“All of these entities, you know, we’re their critical path of operations. So, they can’t do anything without our services… so, you sort of get tied back in, as, ‘Okay, I’m still serving the country.'”
Springs Utilities serves five military installations; one facility is actually on the Fort Carson post, so Deal said, staying connected can come down to a matter of national security.
“It gives you that sense of purpose of service; we are very connected to the military, everything from a security assets perspective and making sure that they’re able to perform their missions and jobs,” Deal said. He added that’s why having a reliable energy source, like coal, is even more crucial.
“I don’t have to worry about whether the wind’s blowing or the sun shining; that is the most resilient type of generation that you could possibly have,” he said.
As part of the ride-along, Deal took FOX21 to the Nixon Power Plant, off of I-25 South, where 70% of the area’s energy is produced and distributed, 50% coming from coal.
Deal said that Colorado’s mandate to have zero carbon emissions by 2029 will drive the rates up and put customers, including the military, at risk.
“So, as the state’s mandates change and all these things start to force us to transition, then you get into the point where now, we’re starting to put reliability at risk,” he added.
Solar would require storing the power in batteries the size of trucks. Deal said their life span is finite and would pose a problem when discarding them. Policies also require having three times the number of usable solar sources on hand, driving up costs that will also be passed down to the consumer.
Deal would rather not get rid of coal. “I’ve got an asset that is our cheapest, most reliable, so I’m having to shut something down that works just fine.”
Meanwhile, plans for the other services provided by Springs Utilities are mapped out years in advance. The sewage is self-contained off Las Vegas Boulevard in downtown and then filtered back into clean water.
Drinking water comes from the Arkansas River and is also moved through the mountains near Breckenridge to reservoirs in El Paso County, 135 miles away—practices that Springs Utilities has made decades in advance, anticipating the growth of the region.
“Right now, we’re putting in infrastructure that will be there for the next 50 to 80 years, and we’re doing our dam rehabilitation up in the mountains that won’t get touched for another 80 years, and we are putting in water lines now that are 30 to 50-year water lines,” he said.
According to Deal, the planning is already coming into play to meet the needs of the City’s east side, as Springs Utilities has begun a major project to provide a critical wastewater line for the Falcon area. When complete, the project is estimated to serve up to 225,000 people.
