Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Former Lt. Gov. says dairies, Southwest Cheese are not big water users.
CLOVIS — Former New Mexico Lt. Gov. Walter Bradley wants to clear up the water situation: We’re not on the verge of running out, he says.
Bradley, now a spokesman for the dairy industry, is speaking out against what he says is “misinformation” being spread about the region’s water future.
“Let’s not leave the public thinking that the sky is falling and they’re going to run out of water in 10 years. That’s simply not true,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Eastern New Mexico News.
Bradley, who handles government and business relations for Dairy Farmers of America’s southwest region, took his message to Clovis’ Water Policy Advisory Committee meeting on Tuesday. He spoke in more detail in an interview with The News on Thursday.
Both times, he emphasized the efforts of local agriculture interests to conserve water and specifically pointed to the management practices of Southwest Cheese, a DFA partner.
“We’re very much into conservation practices and we’re not opposed to exploring new ways to do things,” he said. “But what has surfaced during the last several months with the public is that there’s a perception that is portrayed that dairies are large water users and that Southwest Cheese is a large water user. That perception is not true and we wanted to clarify that.”
At an August meeting of WPAC, officials from the state Bureau of Geology estimated that parts of the Ogallala Aquifer had as little as five or 10 years remaining before they were no longer adequate for irrigated agriculture. Those predictions were based on past trends and current rates of consumption, an important caveat when considering the future of agricultural practices and water management in coming years.
But Bradley said dairies are “big on conservation,” recycling the water they use “at least four times” and in fact “importing water from Texas by bringing that milk over here and processing it.” The result, he said, is that “Southwest Cheese generates right at one million gallons per day that could be used by the city.”
What currently keeps that water from being so-used is the need for additional pipeline to convey it to the Clovis Wastewater Treatment Plant, a plan being pursued by the Public Works Department.
“We’ve already purchased the pipe and in probably two more weeks or so we’ll start installing it,” said Clovis’ Wastewater Superintendent Durwood Billington.
Billington said department employees have already spent the past three weeks making technological updates for the project, which aims to provide the necessary extension of about 5,000 feet to an existing pipeline connecting Southwest Cheese with the city’s “lagoon system.”
The existing pipeline, established about 15 years ago when Southwest Cheese was first built, was used for a few months but soon taken from service since the water needed to be treated for phosphorous.
“Phosphorous is not harmful to the environment, but the only thing is you can’t have phosphorous in water that sits in a lake or pond because it causes algae growth,” Billington said. “It’s not harmful but it causes odors and can be unsightly.”
“The lagoon system holds our treated water,” he continued. “When the wastewater plant is done, water that does not go out to reuse goes into the lagoon system for holding.”
Tests are still needed to determine how much phosphorous-containing water can be treated at a time without additional infrastructure, Billington said.
“It’s not huge, but it’s a million gallons of water that could come from the city without pumping new water,” Bradley added, noting other efforts from regional agriculturists to save water such as more efficient irrigation systems and a change over the years from sorghum and wheat to cotton and silage crops, which demand less water.
“You think agricultural producers aren’t concerned about water? Of course we are,” Bradley said. “That’s how we make a living and that’s how we eat. We just need to cut down.”