SANTA FE - The City of Grants and its water service partner, CH2M HILL, have completed a Source Water Protection Plan (SWPP) to protect the city's source water wells now and in the future. Grants and CH2M HILL, which operates and maintains the city's water system through a public-private partnership, began work on the SWPP in early 2014. Assistance for the Plan was provided by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Drinking Water Bureau's Source Water Protection Plan (SWPP), a voluntary program designed to protect the sources of drinking water in New Mexico.

This Plan is a key part of providing safe, clean drinking water to Grants' residents. "The Source Water Protection Plan is a great way to protect our valuable water and plan for future use at the same time," said Grants City Manager Laura Jaramillo. "My thanks to the team from the city, CH2M HILL and the New Mexico Environment Department for their hard work developing the plan."

The SWPP is a two-part process. The first part requires assessment of areas to be protected and inventory of contamination sources to determine how susceptible the areas are to contamination. The second part requires development and implementation of the protection plan. The Plan includes methods to prevent contamination of source water areas, as well as current and future approaches to prevent contamination.

Grants' wells are tested regularly and maintain high levels of compliance with NMED and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations. The goal of the SWPP is to prevent contaminants from entering public water supply wells by managing the land area that contributes water to the wells. This area includes the surface or subsurface area surrounding a water well. Contaminants can move through the land at the surface or subsurface levels toward the source water and Grants' SWPP describes ways to prevent that from happening.

The city's water system serves a population of approximately 9,000 citizens and consists of two wells, three storage tanks and distribution system. CH2M HILL has operated and maintained the water and wastewater systems since 1988.