gc water commissSeated are Hurley Mayor Ed Stevens and Santa Clara Mayor Richard Bauch; standing behind are Silver City Town Manager Alex Brown, USDA Rural Partners Network Community Liaison Kristina Ortiz, Grant County Commissioner Eloy Medina, Freeport-McMoRan Chino Mine General Manager Randy Ellison, Bayard Mayor Chon Fierro, Freeport-McMoRan Community Development Manager Laura Phelps, and Santa Clara Administrator Sheila Hudman, just after the signing of the approved JPA among the members.

Photo and article by Mary Alice Murphy

The members of the Grant County Water Commission met in a regular monthly meeting on Feb. 23, 2023 to hear updates and consider a revised joint powers agreement.

The Commission consists of representatives from Silver City, Grant County, Santa Clara, Bayard and Hurley.

The first to speak was Ashley Beyer, southern New Mexico regional director from Sen. Martin Heinrich's office. "It is encouraging to see so much progress on this project. The senator regularly asks me where things stand. Our focus is to offer support to provide any federal assistance that we can. We want to be able to support through grants and congressionally directed funding, with a deadline of March 10, 2023. Our office, and, me in particular, can help you with funding requests to figure out where we can fulfill those requests. In terms of the senator's priorities this is one of his highest priorities. We are an ally and a resource."

Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments Executive Director Priscilla Lucero said she did have a request. "We are receiving EPA funding for the preliminary engineering report. The application has been submitted for maybe more than two or three weeks, so anything you can do to expedite to get the grant agreement so we can move forward. We're just on hold. We have provided some additional documentation that the regional EPA office requested, so we're just not sure where we are."

Beyer asked for emails from the EPA, and she will look into it.

Alex Brown, Silver City town manager and town representative on the commission serves as chair and led the meeting.

"The next item of business is to approve the JPA (joint powers agreement," Brown said.

He noted that at the New Mexico Legislature, he met with several members of the commission, as well as representatives from Freeport-Mc-MoRan, with the ISC (interstate stream commission). "We had a very positive meeting. Everything is coming into place very easily. They are hearing your positive comments. All the members have approved the JPA in their individual councils and commissions. I ask for a vote to approve."

The members, Hurley Mayor Ed Stevens, Santa Clara Mayor Richard Bauch, Bayard Mayor Chon Fierro, Grant County Commissioner Eloy Medina, and Brown voted unanimously to approve the JPA, and they all were present and signed it.

Olga Morales, Rural Community Assistance Partnership chief executive, was instrumental in the development of the JPA, when she served with the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC).

Karl Pennock of the RCAC presented an update on the financial analysis for the project.

Raymond De La Vega of Stantec said they have presented their proposal for the preliminary engineering report and once they receive approval, "We will get started."

Pennock said the RCAC will work with the engineers to get the cost information. "We wanted to share our approach to development of an operations budget. This is an example of how to distribute the cost among the various participants. I laid out here a 5-year operating budget on how to pay for operations, and how to fund reserves to pay off the full costs and create sustainability. We will develop a rate study that looks at the revenue that will come in once the project is up and running to pay for operating costs and how to build reserves for replacement costs, such as that needed for infrastructure to replace or rehabilitate them over time. We generally work with four reserves – the operating or working capital reserve, the emergency reserve, the short-lived assets reserve, and a debt reserve, so the revenues have dedicated purposes. The other consideration is your rate and fee schedule, so you know how much the partners need to provide. A lot of good information will come from the PER. As we get closer to getting the PER, I would like to meet with each of you on your financial capacity, so we can share it among ourselves. The bottom line is to share costs equally at an appropriate rate. This is a way to be thinking about how to operate on a sustainable budget."

Brown said Pennock was showing the methodology that will be used to build the budget. "I ask you to look at this and think about it, so we have a heads up when we get real numbers."

The update and overview of the funding was presented by Lucero.

Lucero said they had already talked about waiting for the EPA PER application funding agreement. "For the Colonias Infrastructure Fund, the city, as the lead, has issued a notice of intent to seek funding for design of the project, with an estimated cost of $3 million, using the PER as a match, as well as the match that Silver City will provide. Trying to keep things consistent for the lead, we have decided Silver City should be the lead."

"The ISC was one of the most positive meetings and they seemed to be more comfortable with the way the project is progressing," Lucero said.

Kristy Ortiz, former Bayard clerk/treasurer, gave some history on ISC funding to Bayard. The ISC had provided funding to the city for use on the effluent use projects to take the treated water from the wastewater treatment plant to irrigate the ballfields and for Cobre schools. The award with the cash match was approximately $1.7 million. Once Cobre Schools turfed their field, there was no longer a need for the water and the project. The ISC was not willing to let Bayard use the funding to make improvements at the wastewater plant, as it wasn't considered the conservation side of water use. So, when the meeting took place in Santa Fe, the ISC indicated it would switch the money, $1.3 million, to the Regional Water Plan. They will ask for a match, but the ISC may either waive it or the commission can use the congressional funds that are coming as a match. Bayard has created a draft letter that will be submitted to the ISC.

Lucero gave a big thank you to Mayor Chon Fierro and councilors Eloy Medina and Frances Gonzales for spearheading the draft. "We've been in conversations with various legislative committees, which will also help bring in additional dollars."

Brown said with the request for design funding, once the PER is done, "we can go straight to design."

Lucero also thanked ISC Commissioner Peter Russell, who attended the meeting, for his help.

"The last thing, as Beyer recommended, we will submit for direct congressional funding, and we will request $1 million to $2 million," Lucero said. She noted that when applying for congressional funding they want to know what the ROI (return on investment) is and if there is a clear match. "We've already put $19 million in since the beginning of the project."

Blanca Surgeon with RCAC said the mechanism for Water Trust Board funding should get done, as the agency received more state funding than requested. "There is an understanding that prices are rising, and things change and that's fine. It's very different now doing these projects, but we will work with you. We understand that the project may change."

Lucero addressed the item on the timeline for the project. "What I can say is that the deadline for Colonias is March 8, and for congressional direct funding is March 10, so you won't be seeing me for a while. I will be buried with projects."

Brown said the intent is that the commission will soon have the money for the PER. "We're just waiting for it. The intent is that we will have $1.3 million for design. We will receive Colonias funding by October. We have to keep the momentum going."

Surgeon said on the updated JPA, she said it would go to the DFA (New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration for approval. "They are moving more quickly. You might get it approved within a month."

"We'll get it done sooner," Lucero said.

With no public input and no commissioner input, the next meeting was set for March 16 at 3 p.m. in the Silver City Town Annex, where this meeting took place.

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