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There certainly are private or small town water companies run from what looks like a back yard.
If they have well water, and just chlorinate or add a few chemicals to it, that could happen in what looks like a garden tool shed. Newly constructed community water supplies tend to need at least 100' radius around their well but if it started before the 1990's the well possibly could have been right by the road.
On a slightly more elaborate scale, I have seen a couple of water treatment facilities that were inside a "split-level house" or a "barn". (Someone then went and destroyed the "split-level house" effect by putting a property line perimeter chain-link fence around it and stored pipes in the yard, but I digress.)
If they are working on a construction project, very likely pipes and other materials and equipment would be piled in that yard. Additionally, one common change to treatment methods requires additional "contact time" or a detention period between where the chlorine is added and the first tap where the water system takes its samples for regulatory purposes (called the "entry point"). Perhaps the most common way of doing this is to bury a large pipe that goes back and forth so water coming out has spent, say, 20 minutes or more inside the pipe. That could explain the observation of a big hole with pointless looking pipes inside it.
You can find a US water system's compliance history starting from https://echo.epa.gov/ Most states have primary jurisdiction over public water supply regulation so there could be a more comprehensive if possibly less user friendly state web site.
Someone somehow is supplying water to 75-80 homes from their half acre property where they live? No oversight?
I get that there is construction noise and trucks the OP doesn't like. What I don't get is someone running a water treatment system for a subdivision from their backyard.
If it wasn't for our water tower (500K gallon capacity) our processing facility with one well is contained in a 15X15 building, so it would certainly fit into any back yard in town.
If it wasn't for our water tower (500K gallon capacity) our processing facility with one well is contained in a 15X15 building, so it would certainly fit into any back yard in town.
Also, wells tend to favor lower elevation points and water tanks higher elevation points. So other things being equal, in non-flat areas the water storage could be on the other "end" of the system from the well. If it is, that makes the buried contact time pipe more likely; in a co-located well and water tank, often if the water tank is of the standpipe variety (water sitting on water all the way to the foundation, as opposed to steel legs and air for the "tin man" style), some internal piping and hocus-pocus involving a minimum tank level demonstrates the "contact time."
From the OP's description, there is no water tower. It sounds like a modern pressure system, where as water is pressurized at the well, and the pump operates as needed to keep pressure up such as with our home system. A 60 foot well down to the aquifer 35 feet from surface, and down far enough the water will always be high enough to keep it going. From there it goes to a small 3 gallon tank in the utility room, where pressure is maintained from that tank turning on the pump when pressure drops to 35 pounds and off at 50 pounds pressure. Outside the house, the pressure is much higher, with the pump turning on as needed to fill the water needs such as our sprinkler system, automatic water supply for animals, etc. In our small town of 2,000 people the wells are in a block square park, with a maximum 20'X20' brick building that handles the water system, no water tower. This sits right in the middle of a housing neighborhood.
Some people think something like this has to be in a commercial zoned area. Wrong. Utility supply does not fall into a commercial zoning category. It will be put anywhere the county or city approves it to be placed. It was approved to be located where it is, when the subdivision was established.
The pressurized tank would be in that house type building, and larger than our utility room but a lot smaller than most people would believe would be needed.
Apparently a lot of the lines have to be replaced, and they have the equipment on their property, and the sand and gravel needed when burying the new pipe. The owner would never have been given a grant to replace the pipes, if it was not all approved by the city/county that controls such actions.
We lived in a mountain resort town next door to a major National Park at one time. Be glad your area will not require what was needed to dig the ditch for the new pipe, that was needed there. They used dynamite to blow their way through solid rock, to dig the ditch. They would crack the rock so it could be removed with the dynamite then dig it out with the other equipment. All day long dynamite blasts, and then the heavy equipment.
I didn't see that the OP mentioned the presence or absence of a water tower, other than there not being one enumerated in the nuisances on the neighbor's lot.
Wells that can meet ~100 gpm instantaneous demand continuously in all seasons of the year, by themselves, are luxuries not afforded by all local geologies. Running a community water supply with no storage, just on a variable speed well pump is not a luxury afforded in all regulatory jurisdictions. At 1 day storage criterion and 80 homes x 100 gpd/home that's 8,000 gal net storage required by typical design standards for the system sketched out by the OP. There are such animals as a 10,000 gal buried hydropneumatic tank but anyone I saw with one regretted it.
Those also wouldn't have fire protection storage. Typical ISO needed fire flow is 1,000 gpm and if you take that for 2 hours that's 120,000 gal at 20 psi residual pressure at the high point of the system. Granted not all community subdivision type systems claim fire flow availability, especially the fly by night type ones.
I worked with a 200 unit community public water supply system that depended on a set of wells with yields like 1 gpm, 3 gpm, etc. A hydrogeologist then got them a screamer good for 15 gpm. That finally got this community out of truck hauling water in. Truck hauling water gets expensive.
This is a water company. We have no treatment plants. The owner just hires amateurs to pour chemicals into the water. We live where there is plenty of clean water which runs off the mountains
They just dug a culvert and now the county isn't allowing them to fill it up. There is caution tape tied from the tree to the tree. It looks awful. They cannot drive over it and had just put in another driveway in the back. No doubt this is happening because the County dislikes him immensely. Not that it isn't typical but if this area was commercial, like it should be, it wouldn't look so bad.
It got this way AFTER we bought the house. It was just a crummy house across the street which looked fine or good enough. No signs out stating it was a water company though I did see one large tractor.
There has to be some laws somewhere about just setting up shop on a small lot in a residential area. Dragging in sand and gravel, piling it up alongside large equipment on a small 1/2 acre lot. It's so jam packed there. I'll try to talk to an Attorney friend of ours when he comes up to get his tent trailer we've allowed him to keep on the property. Not to cause trouble but if he can somehow at least park this stuff not near the road in front of our house, so close, that would help.
The guy who works for him is very nice, he told my husband this info. I am sure it is correct. Most folks do not get along with him or avoid him but we haven't done that. We still wave and make light conversation.
The noise is from a grant. His pipes need to be replaced so the noise is going to last a long while. He received a grant to do this.
There is active FEDERAL legislation still on the books from the depression and public works, and state level you have the Dept. of Ecology oversite on private water associations. I've built two in Wash. State: one a shallow well system and one a drilled well.
Federally to be legitimate you need a minimum on ONE ACRE surrounding the well source that is kept clear and clean of all equipment, tools, junk, and available for inspection. STATE WISE you freeze a sample every year and it is archived at the Dept. of Ecology.
You don't do 'RUN OFF' no matter how much water you have as it's not compliant with a safe potable water source. You're in Colorado? I'm surprised your lawyer doesn't have this guys' infor. It's usually public. But if some agency gave him a "grant" unless he got it from the Koch Bros. there would also be publilc information on this guy available. Just a start. His liability is someone in those homes gets sick is enormous, like Flint, Michigan enormous.
Just, no. You don't sue everybody else - when it is the county allowing him to operate. OP has no idea what the previous owner knew and good luck proving it. If it is a legal business which it seems it is, there is no need for disclosure even if they knew. A case designed to only enrich lawyers.
I completely disagree. What I learned when studying law, was that if something seems like it should be against the law - it usually is.
You don't have to put up with a bad situation that appears to be illegal. And there's nothing wrong with paying a lawyer his/her fee. You're far more likely to get what you want by doing so. So, how can paying a lawyer to get you what you want - be a bad thing that only enriches the lawyer?
This type of thinking allows bullies to bully. If you are being bullied, either learn the law yourself and fight them yourself, or hire someone to fight the battle for you. But you never have to allow a bully to ruin your life because some lawyer might actually earn their fee representing you. That kind of thinking is exactly what a bully is hoping you'll think.
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A grant was received? So he's legit?
