---
id: scenarios/hartman-colorado-water-system
about:
  label: 'Hartman, Colorado: a town dissolved over its water'
  description: >-
    A small town in south-eastern Colorado lost its whole government while its
    water tank failed and residents boiled their water for months. The county
    now owns the system. Who should run it, and what will it cost?
  tags:
    - drinking water
    - small towns
    - rural water systems
    - local government
    - Colorado
scenario:
  place: 'Hartman, Prowers County, south-eastern Colorado'
  since: '2025'
  scale: community
domains:
  - water
  - people
  - places
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: >-
        Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order: Application for the
        Abandonment of the Town of Hartman (Colorado Secretary of State, case
        2026 TA 02, 28 July 2026)
      url: >-
        https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/info_center/abandonments/2026/OrderTownAbandonmentHartmanFinal20260728.pdf
    - title: >-
        Department of State Issues Determination in Town Abandonment Application
        for Town of Hartman (Colorado Secretary of State, 29 July 2026)
      url: >-
        https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/newsRoom/pressReleases/2026/PR20260729Hartman.html
    - title: >-
        Colorado declares town abandoned amid water and leadership crisis (The
        Guardian, 1 August 2026)
      url: >-
        https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/01/hartman-colorado-town-abandoned
  created: '2026-10-23'
  reviewed: '2026-10-23'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
Hartman, incorporated in 1910, had fewer than 60 people at the 2020 census, and its town water system serves about 40 homes.[^1,3] The state health department has reported significant deficiencies in the system since 2001.[^1] From 2023 to 2025 it issued orders and penalties of more than $100,000, for failing to monitor contaminants, to plug holes in the storage tank and to keep a certified operator.[^1] The town went on a boil advisory in October 2025.[^1] In January 2026 every trustee resigned, days before a town election, leaving no clerk, no one able to hold an election and no one able to sign the contracts needed to use more than $1 million in state grants for the water system.[^1] By June a resident reported that the water had had no chlorine for over a month and was not drinkable.[^1,3] Colorado changed its law in May 2026 so that a town in this position could be dissolved, and on 28 July 2026 the Secretary of State's office declared Hartman abandoned.[^1,2] Its water system now belongs to Prowers County, which is to hand it to an entity whose main purpose is treating or delivering water, unless the county decides otherwise.[^1,2] One resident who objected argued that state agencies and the USDA, which financed the system, knew it was failing and did not step in.[^1] The objectors and the Prowers County district court agreed that Colorado law gave no one the power to restore a town government.[^1]

## Who needs an answer

- The Prowers County commissioners, choosing who takes over the water system and how it is repaired or replaced.
- The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which regulates the system but does not run it, and the Department of Local Affairs, which with the health department granted the money for the system.[^1]
- Residents, many of them older, who need safe water now and may want to reincorporate later, which the order notes the law allows.[^1]
- Legislators weighing whether Colorado needs a way to keep a small town's government and water running when its officials walk away.

## The domains it chains

One well, a storage tank and pipes to about 40 homes; water quality and the public health risk of untreated water; reimbursement grants that need a functioning government to spend; electricity bills the county is paying to keep water flowing[^1]; state law on who may act; and a town too small to share costs across many households.

## What a twin should let people try

- Repair or connect: the cost of fixing the tank and running the system locally against joining a larger neighbouring system, per household and over decades.
- Who runs it: what an outside operator, a water district or the county would each need in staff, testing and money.
- Early warning: which other small systems in the state show the same pattern of deficiencies, penalties and vacant offices before a collapse.

## Where to start

The Secretary of State's order lists the evidence, including the state health department's orders against the town's public water system (CO0150500) and the Department of Local Affairs memo on its condition.[^1]