Water authority to look at construction

CLOVIS — The board of the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority is scheduled to approve today a contract for construction of a local pipeline, along with moving toward closing a contract that will allocate more funds to the project.

Having now received both state and engineer recommendations, the board will be asked to award Oscar Renda Contracting, Inc. with the Finish Water 2 project, which will establish a pipeline of some 7 1/2 miles between Cannon Air Force Base and an EPCOR water storage system in Clovis.

The overall project is valued in excess of $25 million, of which more than 80 percent is approved to build just over five miles of that pipeline.

A few additional phases of that project could be added in the next several weeks, provided the board can close out its loan agreement with the Water Trust Board. That’s also on today’s agenda, the second of only two items under “new business.”

Provided the board approves the “execution and delivery of a Water Project Fund Loan,” it needs only get signatures from its member entities by November in order to access an additional $2,493,379, according to ENMWUA Administrator Orlando Ortega

Most of that amount is a grant, while only 10 percent is a loan, Ortega added, “so we really get a good bang for our buck with the Water Trust Board.”

The board meets at 1 p.m. today at the Sitterly Professional Center, 801 Pile St.