By Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado
The plight of a tiny community in eastern Colorado will soon be the subject of a congressional hearing.
Colorado U.S. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is coming to the aid of a small water district in Morgan County, where toxic black sludge passes for drinking water.
The Prairie View Ranch Water District is 50 miles northeast of the Denver metro area, and it has been a colossal disaster 20 years in the making. Residents say without drinkable water, their homes are worthless.
Boebert — who represents the residents in Washington D.C. — is asking the House Appropriations Committee for a $5 million grant to help overhaul the water system.
Boebert is the first elected official willing to meet with the residents, see the disaster herself and personally going to bat for them.
“This is something that certainly needs to be addressed.” Boebert told residents. “I’m sorry it’s been ignored for two decades.”
From county commissioners to state engineers, residents say they’ve been let down by the very people who were supposed to protect them.
“We have systems. We have policies. We have regulations that should never allow this, and it went by blind eyes and deaf ears,” resident Sam Belmonte told CBS Colorado.
Morgan County Board of County Commissioners approved the water district as a private for-profit company despite special districts being tax-exempt public entities, allowing developers to run the district for 16 years while residents were in the dark.
Colorado Division of Housing allowed an unregistered installer — using a dead man’s identity and credentials — to assemble manufactured homes in the community and falsify the insignias.
Additionally, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Water Quality Control Division did nothing for 10 years after finding out developers built the infrastructure without state approval, regulatory oversight or central treatment.
By the time the division intervened, the system was failing. The water was contaminated, and the special district was broke.
“This is something that should upset and appall every single Coloradan,” Boebert said.
Residents say Colorado Office of the State Auditor exempted developers from audits for years despite reports showing clear discrepancies. They say the district is missing at least $1 million dollars. They’ve repeatedly asked Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who’s running for governor, to investigate. But they say the only reply they’ve received is form letters.
Belmonte suggests Weiser should follow Boebert’s lead,.
“I ask you AG Weiser, why aren’t you out here?” Belmonte said.
Resident Jesse McCoppin says the community has been begging for help for years.
“Do they just not care? Do they not want to stop this from happening again?” McCoppin said to CBS Colorado.
The residents say Boebert is the only elected official to show she cares by showing up.
“Water has always been my priority, and it will continue to be no matter how small the community,” Boebert told them.
Belmonte says the community is grateful for any help it can get.
“Today was actually invigorating,” Belmonte said. “It gave us some sense of hope that Congresswoman Boebert actually came.”
Boebert left with a water sample to show her colleagues in Congress, in hopes of securing money to help the 150 plus people who live here with water they can’t drink, homes they can’t sell and failing infrastructure they can’t afford to replace.