Construction of a detox center to serve the region has hit a second snag, pushing the facility at least a month behind schedule, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said Tuesday.

After finally rounding up commitments from local hospitals last month to fund part of the new detox center, Maketa is now waiting for the county and Colorado Springs to hash out a utility hookup agreement for the $1.4 million project.

The Regional Building Department won’t issue a building permit without water and sewer connections being nailed down, and approval of that deal isn’t expected until next week.

“I’m dying here with delay,” Maketa told commissioners at their regular meeting Tuesday. “The site is prepared, but nothing else has happened.”

City-owned Colorado Springs Utilities told Maketa in April the county must pay $233,000 to extend water and sewer service from existing lines the county installed in 2005 when the jail was expanded.

The county sought to waive the charges, noting a chief beneficiary of the detox facility is city-owned Memorial Health System, where drunks flood the emergency room.

Utilities said policies bar waiving or reducing the charges, prompting county officials to open negotiations for a trade: county-owned land the city needs for its Southern Delivery System water pipeline along Marksheffel Road in exchange for the hookup fees.

Those talks will culminate in an agreement to be considered by the City Council on Tuesday and by commissioners June 11, County Administrator Jeff Greene said.

“It’s a lot more complicated than a tap fee,” he said.

First, he said, the county wants to avoid a deal in which costs are merely shifted from the Sheriff’s Office to the Transportation Department.

Second, Greene said, “We also have to be sure what Springs Utilities is requesting doesn’t have long-term impacts on road projects.”

If the water pipeline is installed beneath or next to Marksheffel and later the road is widened or improved, the county could get stuck paying to move the pipeline.

The county wants to avoid that, county transportation officials said.Maketa hopes to open the detox facility in September or October.

The facility, which will provide 40 beds for intoxicated individuals, will reside next to the jail on East Las Vegas Street.

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Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, was escorted from the Little Rock police headquarters Monday in Little Rock, Ark. Photo by The Associated Press