CDPHE | Water Quality Fee Setting Facilitation

Colorado dEPARTMENT OF pUBLIC hEALTH AND eNVIRONMENT

Lotus has been working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to facilitate a multi-year stakeholder engagement process to prepare the Water Quality Control Division for two rulemakings. As mandated by a bill passed in 2023, the Division must transfer their water quality fees from statute into regulation and update the drinking water and clean water fee structures to account for inflationary impacts and new service requirements.

For this project, Lotus has helped the Division organize its stakeholder engagement efforts and develop tools and processes to work towards consensus on stakeholder feedback, improve transparency in the Division’s decision-making, and help stakeholders new to the process get up to speed quickly. Lotus led monthly large stakeholder group meetings, including preparation of stakeholder communications, meeting agendas, presentations, minutes, and summaries. For the 2024 rulemaking process, Lotus also supported the Division’s bimonthly stakeholder subgroup meetings by providing guidance and feedback on meeting agendas and presentations, as well as taking minutes and providing meeting summaries to post publicly. 

Ultimately this work culminated in Lotus assisting the Division in their preparations for the 2024 and 2025 rulemaking processes, management of a diverse array of stakeholders, and communication of a complex, technical subject matter.