Monument has bypassed its usual bidding process to complete emergency repairs on a well important to the town’s water availability. 

“We’re living on borrowed time, potentially,” said Jonathan Rigaud, Monument water manager. 

Well 7 has been out of commission since July 9, when it unexpectedly shut down. After an investigation, the town discovered that wiring issues were to blame. 

Wells are the main source of water for a portion of Monument residents west of Interstate 25, where the town’s water enterprise is the main provider. The town has 13 wells, three of which went online in November .

The other side of Monument is supplied by other water districts. 

The well needs to be repaired to maintain the town’s water capacity and system redundancy, especially since the outage hit during a peak demand period. Monument used a record amount of water in 2024, including 21 million gallons in July, which broke the previous record of 19 million gallons.

Well 7 directly supplies the Beacon Lite tank, according to Rigaud. It also helps keep up volume in a zone of high water pressure.

“While its failure alone has a manageable impact, the resulting strain on our other wells and infrastructure could become unsustainable during the peak summer demand,” read the town’s memo. 

To fix the well, a contractor will need to replace a cable, check valves and pipe. On Monday night, town council chose a contractor and authorized just over $88,000 for the repair job.

While the town usually puts out a request for proposal for contracts over $25,000, council approved a bid from the contractors that were brought in to diagnose the issue in the interest of time. 

“We really had to rush through and get it to this meeting,” said town manager Madeline VanDenHoek at Monday’s town council hearing. 

Rigaud said that the fix would take about two weeks to get the well back online. 

Monument makes changes to its water code

Town plans to retain an engineer

At the same meeting, Monument town council voted to retain a full-time engineer. The town engineer will be responsible for evaluating and supervising new developments with engineering aspects as well as providing engineering services for Monument public works. 

Dan Ungerleider, Monument Planning Director, said his department frequently faces projects and proposals with engineering components . 

“We’re going to need an engineer,” he said. “There’s really no way out of it.” 

The town previously had an on-call engineering services agreement. The final contract with the winning bidder will likely be voted on at the Aug. 18 town meeting. 

Monument council reviews state legislation’s impact on local land use