Town concerned about drinking 'chocolate river' water

HOT SULPHUR SPRINGS - Candy lovers might like the sight of it, but town leaders and residents are waiting for the Colorado River to clear up after it turned brown.

Hot Sulphur Springs Mayor Hershel Deputy says it looks like a chocolate river.

"It was literally like chocolate milk you could not see rocks, the bottom, you could not see anything it was so thick," Deputy said.

The Colorado River is the only source of drinking water for Hot Sulphur Springs, but in recent days the amount of sediment got so high that Town Clerk Sandy White says measures had to be taken to protect the drinking water.

"They do a rating of NTUs and it was over 900 NTUs. A normal high runoff is 28," White said.

The town was forced to order its 650 resident's to stop outdoor watering to conserve drinking water.

"We shut down our plant. As far as making water, we have been running off reserves in the storage tank," White said.

Town leaders say they haven't been given an exact reason as to why the river turned brown. They say the leading theory from Colorado Department of Health inspectors is it's because a housing development upstream near Granby went bankrupt. That means a pond that was left unattended broke loose and sent sediment into the Windy Gap Reservoir and the Colorado River.

Now, Jon Ewert and other officers with the Colorado Division of Wildlife are watching to see if all that sediment will kill the fish population in the river.

"We think that maybe we've avoided a direct fish kill, but we don't know for certain yet because the river still isn't clear enough to observe a lot of areas," Ewert said.

Even if the fish make it, the long term impacts may yet to be known.

Silt may still settle on the river bed killing insects fish eat, or that silt could cover and harm small fish just emerging from eggs.

"The potential is to lose an entire year class of Rainbow Trout that were about to emerge from the gravel," Ewert said.

About the only good news is that Deputy says the Colorado is clearing up, along with the town's drinking water.

"It's given our water guy an opportunity. It's gone below 30 NTUs and he's been able to make water for the town again," Deputy said.