After careful review of the information available and working with Town Staff and consultants, the Silt Board of Trustees Monday night unanimously approved action to apply for a $28 MM loan from the State of Colorado’s Drinking Water Revolving Fund to address long-standing issues at the Silt Water Treatment Plant.  The application was made on Thursday, June 15. 

It is likely that the $28 MM loan amount will change, depending on the amount of Federal, State and grant funding the project garners over the next several months prior to loan approval.  The Town anticipates a reduction of up to $7 M in “principal forgiveness”, $500,000 in an “emerging contaminants” grant, $450,000 in an Garfield County Federal Mineral Lease District grant, $300,000 in “disadvantaged community” planning dollars and potentially additional grants that are in process.  The Town is also considering chipping in an additional $750,000 in reserve funds from its water utility. 

In addition to these grants and offsets, Colorado’s Congressional contingent has supported the Town through its Congressionally Directed Spending program, more commonly known as “earmarks”.  Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet have recommended that $2.1 MM be directed to Silt, while Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has referred $5 MM to the project.  These amounts are very preliminary and even if the committees assigned to dole out this money pick the Silt project, Congress will have to pass a 2024 budget by around October 1^st for Silt to take advantage of this funding. 

The Town of Silt Board of Trustees, along with professional staff and engineers have spent since mid-2020 working to find the best path forward to provide Silt citizens with the pre-treatment option that it should have had since the beginning.  The $28 MM loan amount can be reduced, but not increased.  The Board was convinced that it was better to apply for more than the Town thinks it needs at this time so it is not caught short.  There is no obligation to accept the loan by applying now and staff assured the Board that it would continue to work with consultants to reduce the cost of this project so that the loan amount can continue to trend downward. 

Construction on the project would begin late in 2023 and finish in early 2025.

Town of Silt residents with questions about this project are invited to contact Public Works Director Trey Fonner at trey@townofsilt.org  or Town Administrator Jeff Layman at jlayman@townofsilt.org.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, freeing all enslaved people in the Confederacy, many didn’t get the news.  Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States.

Even with those efforts, not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as "Juneteenth," by the newly freed people in Texas.

Only through the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.

To celebrate, Juneteenth is now a Federal, State and Town of Silt observed holiday.  Town offices will be closed on Monday, June 18^th in observance of Juneteenth.  Town Hall will reopen on Tuesday, June 19.