By Mary Alice Murphy

Silver City Town Manager Alex Brown, who serves as the chairman of the Grant County Water Commission said he had received a letter from the Interstate Stream Commission requested a status report on the $2.1 million allocated to the commission from the New Mexico Unit Fund for the regional water project to get water to Hurley.

As a result, the main item of business for the commission meeting on Dec. 9, 2016, at the Town Hall Annex was the consideration of a resolution transferring to the town of Hurley all allocated funds related to the design and construction of a well field and water transmission system from a point in Grant County to the town of Hurley.

The transfer will put the $2.1 million in the hands of Hurley and will provide the funding to complete the transfer of water from a well field owned by Silver City.

Silver City has already transferred the 90 plus acre-feet of water rights from the well field to Hurley, plus the recharge credits the town receives for putting treated effluent into a nearby creek for it to be cleaned by natural aquatic processes. These amounts of water will be enough to serve Hurley residents.

Hurley, for many years, has received water through Freeport-McMoRan, but several years ago, the company informed the town it would no longer provide water after 2018. The town has been working to develop water to serve its residents. The result has been the Regional Water Project developed by the town of Silver City to, in its first phase, provide the water to Hurley, and then in subsequent phases to provide supllemental water from the well field to Bayard, Santa Clara, Arenas Valley and on to Silver City.

Gary Berg of Occam Engineers Inc. said he is working on third iterations for the agreement to spend legislative money that was allocated to the project. "We want to get the testing done on the hole, and then hydrologists will analyze it. After that, we will get lab tests to the Drinking Water Bureau."

"We need to develop the depth, screens and electrical descriptions," Berg continued. "We also want feedback from Grant County for easements. We are in communications with the Graham and Turner private landowners and are working on the Department of Transportation permit for drilling under the highway, and we are communicating with the railroad holding company."

Priscilla Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments executive director, said she and Brown had presented to the New Mexico Infrastructure Finance Conference. They learned that Sandra Alarcon, USDA Rural Development loan specialist, would be responsible for the area. She made some recommendations for funding, including USDA and EDA (U.S. Economic Development Administration). They also heard from Kathy Pfiffner, USDA RD community program director, who told them she believes an update of the preliminary engineering report is needed, because it is two years old. She was concerned that with the new U.S. administration coming in that Colonias funding will be lost.

"We are having conversations on how to reduce the costs for the PER," Lucero said. "We also want to utilize collaboration with federal agencies and ask for half the needed funding from USDA and half from EDA. One of our advantages is that not much funding is coming to New Mexico from the EDA. As a COG, we administer most EDA funding."

She also noted that all Colonias funding that has a water or wastewater component must be reviewed by the Environment Department through an agreement with the New Mexico Finance Authority.

The next meeting will be called as needed.