Water authority reports biggest awards from federal, state governments

CLOVIS — In the last few weeks the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority received its biggest federal award in project history with $15 million, and its biggest award from the governor’s office with $1 million.

Chairman David Lansford hopes this is a good launching point for future awards to fulfill the 20/30/40 plan to fund an interim groundwater pipeline.

Members had an overall positive feeling about the recent legislative session that concluded a week before the authority met Thursday at the authority offices at the Sitterly Professional Center.

“The takeaway, from my perspective, is we have an incredible delegation of legislators,” said authority state consultant Joe Thompson. “The relationship with the fourth floor (governor’s office) could not be better. Our relationship with the state engineer could not be better.”

Lansford is hopeful the money could be better in the next few years, because as appreciative as he was of the $1 million the original request was $10 million a year over the next three years.

“The governor can still help us with the 20/30/40 scenario,” Lansford said, referring to a plan to fund the $90 million interim groundwater pipeline through the authority members ($20 million), state ($30 million) and federal ($40 million) shares.

The interim pipeline would facilitate local water delivery and serve as a way to make the authority a functional utility while the final connection is built to the Ute Reservoir in Quay County, where authority members have reserved water for years.

Lansford’s idea for the next two years would be for Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham to put $30 million into the state water trust board in each of the next two years. The authority could receive about half of that total each year, and the remaining money could fund smaller water projects needed throughout the state. That, Lansford said, would give Lujan-Grisham a legacy of infrastructure.

In other business at the Thursday meeting:

• The authority received its audit of the 2018-19 fiscal year from Integrity Accounting and Consulting.

Eric Robinson of Integrity said the audit was mostly clean, though extra work was required due to some large awards from the Bureau of Reclamation.

There was one finding on the travel and per diem policy, which happened when meals on a Washington, D.C., trip were billed to the authority credit card for $136 in excess of travel and per diem allowances. Robinson said Authority Executive Director Orlando Ortega brought the item to Integrity’s attention before the audit began, and policy has since been changed to prevent a repeat occurrence.

• A pair of easement agreements were approved, with one of the parties requesting to fix a road itself following authority work. Authority attorney Kameron Barnett noted that party did sign a contract noting it would be solely liable for its work.

• The authority approved acceptance of a grant/loan from the state water trust board. The $2.87 million is 90% grant, with the loan portion of $286,800 to be repaid over two years at 0.25% interest.

• Updates were approved to the authority’s finance manual and procurement policies and its purchasing policies and procedures. The items hadn’t been updated since 2015, Ortega said, and, “they need to be tools we use on a daily basis.”

Changes to the purchasing policies included per diem updates and eliminating personal credit card use for authority business.

• Lansford briefly touched on an opportunity to seek money through the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration program, which matches Department of Defense dollars to induce landowners near installations to not participate in activities (wind turbines, oil drilling, irrigation) that could impact an installation’s readiness.

• During a construction update, engineer Jim Honea and construction manager Chris Bitsilly noted a small section of 33-inch piping near Cannon Air Force Base was damaged and needed to be replaced.

Neither was sure what caused the damage, but Bitsilly noted the 48-inch casing pipe was fine. He anticipated three weeks to receive replacement pipeline because the supplier had leftover materials.

“I feel like I need to be pleased with a five-week schedule for remediation,” Lansford said, noting such an endeavor can easily take six months.

• The next meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. March 26 at the Memorial Building in Portales.