Food for thought doesn’t come cheap.

Colorado Springs Utilities spent about $31 per meal to feed 74 elected officials and community leaders on a recent two-day tour of the city’s large water system. The water tour from Colorado Springs to Leadville included an overnight stay Thursday in Salida.

One dinner and two lunches for the invitation-only water tour cost $6,900, according to Utilities, a $1.1 billion, four-service utility owned by the city.

The tour cost ratepayers $25,000 total. Other costs:

• $7,800 for booklets, binders and other education materials

• $7,300 for lodging

• $3,000 for two buses

Utilities officials on Monday provided additional cost information about the tour.

The costs for education materials included $500 for binders and $600 to print materials that went inside the binders, allowing participants to take notes and follow along with presentations during the tour, Utilities spokeswoman Patrice Lehermeier said.

City Councilwoman Angela Dougan, who questions whether the water tour is necessary, said Utilities might want to tag along with her the next time she goes shopping for her kids.

“I just saw the cost of $500 for binders,” Dougan said Tuesday. “I’m not sure how many binders that actually entails, but being a mom who just purchased a few binders for back-to-school, I’m skimping on some extra binders right now at the Walmart ‘Back-to-School’ sale and getting them all at 50 percent off. Maybe I should invite a Utility person to come with me.”

Lehermeier said the $7,800 cost for education materials included other materials, including booklets from the Colorado Foundation for Water Education on state water history and other related topics.

“We have to pay for these, and the printed versions are cheaper than the DVDs,” she said in an email. “Each participant also received a water bottle (so we didn’t have to provide bottled water), and a pen, as well as two sunscreen packets and a rain poncho, for safety’s sake.”

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Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623

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Pueblo Reservoir is part of Colorado Springs Utilities’ Southern Delivery System water pipeline, now under construction. (Gazette file) Photo by