By Mary Alice Murphy

Grant County Water Commission members, who represent the county and the four incorporated municipalities, met Wednesday, June 17, 2015, to hear updates and discuss a request from one of the members.

The Commission has taken as its main project a regional water supply and distribution project, which will provide water to Hurley, which has no water rights of its own, and supplemental water to Bayard and Santa Clara, as well as to the associated water districts from Hurley to Tyrone.

Commission Chairman Alex Brown, representing, as town manager, the town of Silver City, said he, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments Executive Director Priscilla Lucero, and Hurley Mayor Edward Encinas attended a meeting of FundIt the previous day.

"We made a presentation to the FundIt group, which is made up of most state agencies and all the COGs," Brown said. "It was not a time for them to offer funding, but the feedback we got was very positive. They were impressed with the way we are working together and with how much we had done."

He said at the previous commission meeting the month before, members had heard from a representative of the U.S. Economic Development Administration, from which the commission did not receive much encouragement, and from a representative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who was looking forward to working with the commission and had other ideas for funding.

"The EDA was interested in tying a industrial park at the airport in with our water project," Brown said. "The FundIt group was formed because it realizes that each state or federal agency puts different criteria on funding, so they were sitting together to work through it. The Department of Finance and Administration was at the table, too."

He noted that discussions are being held to increase the funding limit on the Community Block Development Grant program from a top amount of $500,000 to $750,000 or even $1 million. "The program had $2.5 million left over, which is being put into its emergency fund."

The meeting got a lot of the agencies to think about their processes. "The turnover in agencies has been so great lately that many were new and had to introduce themselves. All of us are having the same problems with agencies, even in knowing who to call and talk to about an issue. Other COGs were helpful in offering to tell us how they set up regional water project processes."

"It was very positive, more positive than I thought it would be," Brown said.

"They were quite informed," Encinas said. "I felt very positive that we would get help from FundIt."

Gary Berg of Engineers Inc. said the environmental document for the Hurley portion of the project is complete, and "we can easily add to it for the rest."

Brown asked if the commission should submit the environmental document for the whole project or just Phase 1 of getting the water out of the ground. "It will cost $7 million for the first well and water to Hurley. It is realistic for funding, if you add in the $2.1 million allocated from AWSA (Arizona Water Settlements Act) funding."

Encinas noted that solar power would help with operational costs of pumping to storage.

"You have 80 acres," Berg said. "It appears we're good with the FAA, but we have to stay clear of cultural sites."

Santa Clara Mayor Richard Bauch asked how often FundIt meetings would occur.

Brown said the meetings would take place every other month for entities to make presentations to all the agencies, but then the requests for funding would go to the individual agencies.

"On the FundIt website, you can upload your proposal, so when you present at a meeting, the members would have had access before so they can ask questions ahead of the presentation," Brown said. "You pitch to all of them and then make your application to individual agencies. I think it will be a beneficial process."

Bauch had requested to be on the agenda to discuss water rights for Hurley. "I want to talk about the recharge credits the town of Silver City is putting toward supplying water to the regional project. I would like to see some of those water rights go to the town of Hurley rather than to this board."

Brown said the town already has 193 acre-feet of water rights at the well field being developed near the airport. Hurley in its 40-year water plan, projects the need for 240 acre-feet.

"The 193 acre-feet of water rights has as its delivery point solely to Silver City," Brown said. "Let's hold off, because if it becomes possible to transfer the water rights outside the critical block system, then it will change things. The 747 acre-feet of recharge credits are for what the town puts into the water system. We made the delivery points of that water all the way from Hurley to Tyrone. We don't really understand the ownership of the recharge credits.

"The state owns all the water rights," he continued. "You have the right to use the water rights. The recharge credits also belong to the state. I want to set it up so the recharge credits can be used in the whole area. As of now and into the future, Silver City won't need the water rights. We use 41 percent of what we own, which is down from a high of 58 percent, even though we have 20 percent more customers. This year, we are using the same amount as in 1985, because of conservation measure, such as leak detection. We want to get the amount of water we pump to be billed for."

"My concern is that Hurley will be buying water forever," Bauch said. "We own our water and just charge for the operations and maintenance."

"The water will not be purchased by Hurley," Brown said. "The only thing they will be charged for is the operational costs to get the water to Hurley and maintenance costs, for which they will need to put money aside."

Bauch asked what would happen to Hurley if "something in this board changes?"

"This is an extremely important issue," Assistant Silver City Town Manager James Marshall said. "The net affect of the recharge credits is to allow security for Hurley. It's like owning the rights without owning them. Once we use federal and state funding for the project, we cannot ever shut off water to Hurley."

Encinas said Hurley realizes that the water rates will have to be high enough to put in money for replacing a broken line, for instance.

"Phase 1 is the Hurley water system," Brown said. "When we first started out, we stipulated that all our water systems would remain autonomous, because each of us has our own challenges."

He said the town would be going to a radio-read water metering system by the end of the year.

Brown said the 747 acre-feet of recharge credits plus the 193 acre-feet belonging to Silver City is the threshold for a limit of how much water will be available to Hurley and the other communities. Hurley has 240 acre-feet in its 40-year water plan; Bayard uses about 300 acre-feet annually and Santa Clara 240, equaling about 780 acre-feet of water. If, for instance, the industrial park at the airport would request water, it could be provided up to what the municipalities don't use of the total 940 acre-feet available.

"With this water available, all three of you could be served, and your wells could be taken offline for maintenance," Brown noted.

Marshall said once the credits are put toward the regional project, and the 193 acre-feet of water rights are transferred to Hurley, the water supply to the Hurley cannot be revoked.

"Each municipality pays for its system and has control," Brown said. "Now Hurley doesn't pay for transmission, but once they do, they will have to pay for everything. Hurley doesn't pay market value now, while they receive water from Freeport, but the town knows it will have to raise water rates."

"We have to apply water rates to users, including operations and maintenance," Encinas said.

"I think it's more important for Santa Clara and Bayard to use as much of this water as possible," Berg said. "So, if there's ever an attempted money grab for the water, we can prove to state agencies that it is being put to beneficial use and that they can't take the recharge credits away. I think Hurley is set. You other guys have to cover your backsides. If water is unused, someone will grab it."

"They won't be able to take the credits, because we're already using them," Brown said.

Bauch said he just wanted to make sure Hurley doesn't get cut short. "We need an agreement or stipulation that the town gets so much water."

Encinas said the preliminary engineering report sets out how much water Hurley gets. "I am comfortable with the Water Commission and where we're at. In annual reports, we will show how much water was used where."

Brown said he was disturbed at an Interstate Stream Commission meeting that the member commissioners did not understand about recharge credits. "They kept asking questions from different directions. Yes, it's very confusing. We can put in guarantees for the funders that Hurley, Bayard, Santa Clara and associated water systems all get water. Right now, it's our (Silver City's) water because we haven't transferred the credits."

He noted that everyone talks about water differently. "The state owns the water rights. Private entities have to show they have put their rights to beneficial use. Government agencies can protect their rights under their 40-year water plans. We own the right to use the water rights."

Berg said the municipalities on average pump about 60 percent of their water rights.

"As long as Hurley is comfortable, and if all of us protect it by using the water, we're OK," Bauch said.

"We will need to make guarantees to a legal point for the members of this board," Brown said. "If an industrial park develops, we will reallocate water to benefit all of us."

Berg changed the subject. "The town of Silver City has signed and submitted an application for the second test well. We expect to have it staked out in about a month. It will be great if we can have the results by the end of September. We will drill the hole down to bedrock about 1,500 feet or so. The first well was 1,000 feet deep and most of the water was coming up from below. If we can get this done and get the well design done, we can spend the ISC money and develop the well and get power to it."

The next meeting of the Grant County Water Commission is set for 3 p.m. Thursday, July 16, tentatively at the Bayard Community Center.