By Mary Alice Murphy

At the Grant County Water Commission meeting held on Thursday, Sept. 25, the commissioners heard an update on the preliminary engineering plan from Gary Berg of Engineers, Inc.

The project is to develop the town of Silver City's water rights near the Grant County Airport.

Berg laid out six alternatives: no construction; construction with one booster pump near Bayard; construction with a booster pump near Santa Clara; construction with no booster pump; construction with lower flows for the first five years; and construction with a photo-voltaic solar array on one booster.

"You would drill two wells from 1,300-1,400 feet deep at the site," Berg said. "The plans include 16-inch pipe. The water would be pumped to the Hurley tanks and discharged at the head tank for Bayard and Santa Clara at the booster stations. Water to Arenas Valley would be taken out near Racetrack and Highway 180. The cost would be $1.50 per 1,000 gallons for operating costs. The project costs are just under $20 million."

He explained the lower flows for the first five years would cut start-up costs, and then full flows would increase the operating costs to about $450,000 per year. Berg said the life of a pump is about 10 years. "For the first five years, we would put in lower-flow pumps, then replace them with higher-flow pumps. We could get much of the value of the lower-flow pumps back in salvage, which would help pay for the higher-flow pumps. We would go down with the large pipe for the higher flow, and put an adapter on it for the lower-flow pumps. In the first few years of the low-flow option, we would use the Hurley tanks for storage. A tank costs about $530,000 and a large pump $80,000 each."

Berg said he planned to complete the PER by the first of October to give to Community Development Director Peter Russell for review. "I have to check the numbers with the requirements for funding sources."

Alex Brown, commission chairman, said he had talked to Russell. "In the application for the recharge credits, we have asked for 700 acre-feet, which would increase by 50 acre-feet a year. We can't take the high flow to start with, which is why we are not purchasing the high-flow equipment at first. We don't want to let it just sit there. After five years, the flow should be enough for Hurley, and then enough to supplement Bayard and then Santa Clara."

"We will start designing the Hurley project in another month," Berg said. "We don't know where the construction dollars are coming from yet."

Hurley Mayor Ed Encinas asked if Berg had heard from Freeport-McMoRan Inc. about easements, to which Berg answered that he had not. "I've redrawn the pipeline to 42,000 feet to go around the airport. With a 16-inch pipeline, there is not much friction loss, but it is uphill to Hurley."

Encinas said the town had received Colonias Infrastruction Fund planning money this time. "Next time, we will ask for construction money."

Brown asked about the depth of the wells. "In the initial years, it will be 1,400 feet. How deep do you have to go for water?"

"We don't know where the static water line is," Berg said. "In the test wells, we hit some water at 200 feet and then no more until almost 1,000 feet. We are figuring we will begin pumping from about 600 feet."

Bayard Mayor Charles Kelly gave an update on the Hanover water situation. "We have allowed Hanover 200,000 gallons a month, but they hadn't been paying us. They got money from the state to pay the bill. We don't want to be Hanover's water utility. They say the problem is the drought, but we're in drought, too."

Brown said the town of Silver City has been doing leak detection for several years. "We've found three leaks this year. Finding them early is saving us. For the past 10 years, we've been using 62 percent of our total water rights. Now we're using 51 percent and the total number of accounts has gone up. We've been keeping on top of the leaks. We are talking about going to radio read of the meters, which can also check leaks as low as .2 of a gallon. We want to continue eliminating unaccounted water, which is already fairly low at 14 percent. With the radio read, we will capture more metered water, which the consumer will pay for. The extra revenue we receive will pay for the meters."

The next meeting date was not set because of conflicts in October.