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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Proposals for Water System Heard

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
    Engineers presented several preliminary proposals for a regional water system in the Estancia Valley at an EMW Gas Association board meeting on Tuesday.
    Last fall Wilson & Company, an Albuquerque engineering firm, was awarded a contract by EMW to prepare a Preliminary Engineering Report, or PER, a U.S. Department of Agriculture document.
    "The PER is the cornerstone of any application for funding," said Donzil Worthington, Wilson senior project manager.
    The final copy of the PER will be ready next week.
    Worthington and Keith Reed, Wilson senior project manager, will present the PER to the USDA, hoping to get funding for the project.
    Typically the USDA takes up to 30 days to review a PER, Reed said.
    But before board members listened to the engineers they defined the potential service area as an Estancia "economic" Basin that the water pipeline would serve incorporating areas like Edgewood, Mountainair and Chilili.
    Worthington and Reed presented board members with three engineering alternatives for the area that sized the pipeline and water facilities according to future growth, Reed said in an interview after the presentation.
    The engineers handed out packets of oversize color figures representing different water pipelines, including one serving the entire basin area to a small system serving only McIntosh.
    Worthington cautioned members that the figures were "not intended to be definitive" outlines of where water facilities would stand.
    "We laid out hydraulic profiles and set some tanks to provide water service" on the different alternative figures, Reed said.
    The estimated total project construction cost of Alternative A, a "large scale system" serving a 1,119 square mile area, was more than $135 million, a "conservative estimate," Worthington said.
    The Estancia Basin is approximately 2,400 square miles and "has been identified as a potential service area," Worthington said.
    "It sounds good but I'm just not used to looking at numbers that big," said Jim Schwebach, chairman.
    Reed said there was a good chance that the USDA might fund Alternative C, the "small system" that would serve the McIntosh area, estimated in the engineer's summary at just over $10 million.
    "It's a foot in the door on a very small scale," Reed told members.
    Mike Anaya, one of EMW's original board members, said he was pleased at the work that the engineers and the EMW Water Planning Committee had done making changes to the original plan.
    "Grants will be the key to everything," Anaya said.
    EMW members have spoken with Gov. Bill Richardson, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, State Engineer John D'Antonio and most recently Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Anaya said.
    "Udall called me today and was interested in giving us any help he could. We've got the groundwork laid," Anaya said.