How much growth can C-Falls handle? Here’s some numbers

The issue of capacity often comes up at public hearings when it comes to development in Columbia Falls. Do the schools have room? Does the city have sewer and water capacity?

The answers depend on how much growth Columbia Falls will see in the coming years. But according to both city and school officials, both entities have room to grow.

Here’s a look at how much:

• Water. During the Columbia Falls City Council meeting last week, city manager Susan Nicosia said the city is “swimming” in water. It recently put in a new third well and with all three of them running, they max out at 4,930 gallons per minute. The city right now pumps about 1,630 gallons per minute or 2.34 million gallons of water a day. The system still has plenty of capacity. It also has significant leaks, though with recent fixes, it has seen about 12 million gallons of water a month saved, with more work to be done. For example, the city is soliciting bids for water main work at Fifth Avenue East North, which they suspect has a significant leak. Finding leaks has proven problematic, because the ground in the city is gravel and water leaks just seep back into the water table.

The city does have more water rights if it needs to drill more wells. It has rights dating back to the 1840s, Nicosia noted.

• Sewer: The city is upgrading its sewage treatment plant using federal Covid relief funding. With the upgrades, it’s expected the city can handle about 210,000 more gallons of sewage per day. It currently has about 2,000 sewer customers (homes). With the upgrades it would have capacity for about 1,000 more, assuming each home had the average of 2.5 people per residence. Having said that, the city has already approved 250 or so units in the past couple of years, which includes the Garnier Heights subdivision, the Tamarack Meadows subdivision and new apartments and condos on Nucleus Avenue.

• Schools: The two elementary schools, Ruder and Glacier Gateway, were built for a capacity of 640 students. Currently, enrollment at Glacier Gateway is 476 and 563 at Ruder. As a result, the schools have room for 241 students in the K-5, superintendent Dave Wick noted.

The junior high current enrollment is 535. Technically, the school was built for 1,000 students, but that would amount to 30 students in every classroom — so it’s a bit of a stretch. “I think if you got to 850 or 900 it would be packed,” Wick said.

At the high school, current enrollment is 689. At one time, the high school enrollment was over 940. The maximum is about 1,000, Wick said.

Staffing is an issue, he noted, but that’s a problem across the country.

“It would not be a reason that we couldn’t handle increased enrollment. We still are looking for paraeducators, bus drivers, custodians, and hot lunch.  That isn’t just us; it seems to be everywhere in this economy,” Wick noted.