Colorado declares town abandoned amid water and leadership crisis

A small town in south-eastern Colorado was recently declared abandoned after all of its local public leaders resigned amid a drinking water supply crisis.

The office of Colorado’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, announced the fate of Hartman on 29 July, a little more than a month after being advised in writing that the town “had lacked chlorine in its water for [more than] one month and the water was not potable and ‘smells horrible’”, according to public documents.

Hartman resident, landowner and voter Jessie Simmons had also written to Griswold’s office that “the town … had been under an order to boil water for months”, documents said.

The documents added that Hartman “had no board of trustees or town clerk, was unable to hold a [local] election, and owned infrastructure critical for the treatment or delivery of water to residents” that – barring a successful appeal – would become the responsibility of surrounding Prowers county’s government.

Hartman had a population of fewer than 60 at the time of the 2020 US census – before it was declared abandoned under a Colorado state law allowing for the dissolution of incorporated communities which can no longer maintain a government.

Colorado’s Denver Post newspaper described the administrative failure of Hartman as having “no analog in recent state history”.

As the Post put it, political infighting, accusations of fraud, a physical fight at a governing board meeting and a worsening drinking water supply crisis combined to doom Hartman as a standalone town.

Its water tower spent years needing but never getting substantial repairs as the town was gripped with feuding which the Post compared to the 19th-century rivalry waged in the US’s Appalachia region by the Hatfield and McCoy families. The outlet reported the quarreling in Hartman was so intense that it kept at bay any water operators who could step in to assist.

That ultimately left Hartman residents subjected to a boil-water order throughout the year preceding the town’s abandonment, during which all of the community’s elected officials had resigned from their posts, too.

Simmons wrote to Griswold’s office requesting the formal abandonment of Hartman on 17 June. In a 15-page order granting Simmons’ request, the secretary of state’s office wrote: “Not determining that the town of Hartman is abandoned … would leave the residents in further legal limbo during a health hazard, with no authority to conduct business, hold elections, or fix their water infrastructure so that clean water can be delivered to the town residents.

“Abandonment is the only legal mechanism in Colorado [law] that creates an avenue for residents of the area to receive clean water.”

At least some in Hartman objected to its abandonment despite the conditions there.

Resident Shawna Casey said: “Hartman is not a failed town. Hartman is a town that was failed by the systems designed to protect it.”