A small town in south-eastern Colorado was recently declared abandoned after all of its local public leaders resigned amid a drinking water supply crisis.
The office of Colorado’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, announced the fate of Hartman on 29 July, a little more than a month after being advised in writing that the town “had lacked chlorine in its water for [more than] one month and the water was not potable and ‘smells horrible’”, according to public documents.
Hartman resident, landowner and voter Jessie Simmons had also written to Griswold’s office that “the town … had been under an order to boil water for months”, documents said.
The documents added that Hartman “had no board of trustees or town clerk, was unable to hold a [local] election, and owned infrastructure critical for the treatment or delivery of water to residents” that – barring a successful appeal – would become the responsibility of surrounding Prowers county’s government.
Hartman had a population of fewer than 60 at the time of the 2020 US census – before it was declared abandoned under a Colorado state law allowing for the dissolution of incorporated communities which can no longer maintain a government.
Colorado’s Denver Post newspaper described the administrative failure of Hartman as having “no analog in recent state history”.
Abandonment is the only legal mechanism in Colorado [law] that creates an avenue for residents of the area to receive clean water.
For some reason this feels distinctly American.
I think it’s Federal Law now to be this way. laws that make this shit happen tend to be enacted during Republican controlled times… it’s a pattern.
Republicans break shit and blame everyone else. Democrats fix shit while assigning no blame. Republicans repeal all of the Democrat policies and then reinstate them with a lot more corruption (and take all the credit) while declaring Democrat policies to be evil. rinse repeat.
I think this was poorly explained in the article, their other legal mechanism would be to elect a functioning city government. In the absence of this, they can legally declare the city abandoned so that they are administered directly by the county (regional) government.
As long as the city exists, the city is typically responsible for utilities within the city limits. The city government is responsible for requesting aid and coordinating repairs to the water infrastructure. There seem to be some sort of local politics issue where they are unwilling to elect local officials to do this, may be people on the other side who want the city to be declared abandoned. By abandoning the city they can appeal directly to the county government to help repair the water system.
Does wherever you live not have unincorporated areas? Places with no functioning town/ village government, so they are administered by the bbezr level of government, county in this case?
Colorado’s Denver Post newspaper described the administrative failure of Hartman as having “no analog in recent state history”.
It will have many analogs in future state history. In other states, as well. Thank you, corporations and politicians! This is what we have to look forward to!
Water wars will be starting soon!
Gas town, Bullet town, and the new Datacenter town.
Shady sands, Megaton, diamond city, what are they to do?
Buy water from the hub, rivet city, and some kid with a purifier.
Resident Shawna Casey said: “Hartman is not a failed town. Hartman is a town that was failed by the systems designed to protect it.”
Years not fixing water to the point where it was unusable, sub 100 population and apparently not growing, all admin staff quit amid fistfights and arguments over fraud and the like. Homegirl is snorting dangerous amounts of copium.
Developers can throw up a subdivision in a few months that holds well more than 100 people, so the mechanism to fix the water system was always there, there just wasn’t a tax base to pay for it, and apparently no will to take corrective action to fix the systemic issues.
That was a wild mini-rabbit hole I went down reading about this tiny town. Between a revolving door for politicians, an actual fistfight, DOLA showing up over 30 times attempting to straighten things out, and embezzlement on a massive scale… What a shit hole. I feel bad for the residents.
Now that the town is “abandoned” the county can take it over in order for it to be someone else’s problem! Meanwhile the taxpayers will be paying the bill as usual.
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They probably could have learned about collecting rain water. A lot of infrastructure could have probably been created to make that easier and more sustainable. Sounds like a lack of organization and leadership.
Sadly Colorado like many states has a strict ban on collecting rainwater especially during droughts.
that ban sure does backfire a fuck ton… as in every time there is a drought or major water pollution crisis.
Actually you can have two rain collection barrels
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb16-1005
Although legally it can’t be used for drinking, only for gardening
which doesn’t help at all. and you can’t use those barrels during droughts… even for gardening.
it’s one of those stupid laws where state wise you can do it but federal law says you can’t do it. and federal trumps state especially when Trump is in charge.
The concern about collecting rain water in Colorado is that if enough people did it there’d be nothing to flow downhill to feed all the towns with drinking water and power from dams. This, of course, happened all on its own anyway.
There’re a whole bunch of things going on here not the least of which is that if all the dice roll the wrong way, the stars go exactly wrong, the law created a circumstance where you’re legally expected to stand outside in a rainstorm with a cup in hand and die of dehydration. That’s my weak understanding of it.
Federal laws always overrule local law. It’s the entirety of the Supremecy Clause in the constitution
Way older than Trump’s presidency
so if a state says that raping kids is illegal but the federal government says that raping kids is perfectly legal… you would support legally raping kids because federal law Trumps local Law.
great. glad to know I wasn’t wrong in thinking that you were a piece of shit.
Wtf, no that’s not even close to what I said
False. Residents are explicitly allowed to collect rainwater. You can collect and keep 110 gallons, but it can only legally be used for non-potable purposes.
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Does that apply to municipalities or individuals. The town may have been able to do it
So sad to see a town go out like this.
