Colorado Springs Utilities says it needs to spend in excess of $1 million to repair a backup pipeline from Rampart Reservoir that never has been used in an emergency even as it is building a new $1 billion pipeline from Pueblo Reservoir.

The Pine Valley Pipeline, which was damaged and exposed last week during a flash flood, was the city’s primary water source until Utilities built the Stanley Canyon Tunnel in the 1980s. The tunnel now supplies between 75 percent and 80 percent of the city’s water.

In recent years, Utilities rebuilt major portions of the pipeline in case something happened to the tunnel, said Andy Funchess, field operations manager for Utilities’ water system operations.

“We were ready to charge that line at the end of August. That’s out the window,” Funchess said Tuesday while standing near the path of the flash flood.

“It’s going to be months, if not years, before we actually get this pipeline in working condition again and can get that pipeline restored,” Funchess said. “It’s really important that we have, because Rampart is so critical to our water supply, that we have a secondary or backup source to the Stanley Canyon Tunnel. We’ll get it back together, but it’s going to take a lot of time and apparently it’s going to cost a lot of money.”

The pipeline never has been needed for an emergency, but Utilities uses it about every decade when it does maintenance on the tunnel, spokeswoman Patrice Lehermeier said.

The Southern Delivery System, a pipeline scheduled to be online in 2016, will provide redundancy for Utilities’ water delivery network, too, she said in an email. But the city always will need the Northfield System at Rampart Reservoir, which includes the Stanley Canyon Tunnel and the Pine Valley Pipeline, she said.

“It is a system that has served Colorado Springs well and is too important of an investment (the reservoirs, pipes, dams, treatment plants) to not maintain,” she said. “As long as we have a ‘workhorse’ like Northfield, we need to have a backup option to maintain that service.”

Scott Hente, City Council president and Utilities Board chairman, agreed.

“If the main line ever went out, about 75 percent or 80 percent of Colorado Springs just lost their water,” he said. “That’s a pretty big reason (to make the repairs) right there.”

City Councilman Tim Leigh said redundancy should be provided across the entire water system.

“The redundancy coming from the Southern Delivery is the other side of the system,” he said. “You have the Colorado River system (from Rampart Reservoir). You have the Arkansas River system (from Pueblo Reservoir). Two different systems.”

Funchess, Utilities’ filed operations manager, said the damage to the Pine Valley Pipeline could continue to increase as a result of the Waldo Canyon fire.

“All the vegetation is gone. It’s all burned up,” he said. “When we look at this valley, the erosion that happens from a flash flood is roughly seven times what would have happened in a pre-fire condition. When a fire comes, all bets are off.”

Funchess said Utilities is working with the U.S. Forest Service on a plan to control erosion. He said Utilities has “preliminary ideas” that have yet to be vetted by the Forest Service, which owns a majority of the land burned by the fire.

“We have to be aggressive to try to control some of this debris flow,” he said. “It’ll be things like large sediment ponds, deep sediment ponds to collect some of that debris.”

While recent rains have “caused us some real challenges,” the impacts of the fire will be felt for decades, Funchess said.

“Back up there where the trees are all dead, where the vegetation is all gone, where all the organics and the soil have been completely burned away, that’s going to take years to reestablish. Years and years and years and years,” he said.

“Everybody’s seen the Hayman fire and the devastation that left,” he added. “There are portions of this fire that are just as devastated as the Hayman burn area. It’s going to be decades before it’s any semblance of normal.”

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Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623

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Mike Cobb, the raw water operation supervisor for Colorado Springs Untilites, surveys the post-Waldo Canyon Fire erosion Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012, that damaged the Pine Valley and Northfield waterlines. The two waterlines are secondary lines for the Colorado Springs water system. Repairs will cost more than a $1 million. Photo by CHRISTIAN MURDOCK, THE GAZETTE

Christian Murdock