Water authority approves execution of loan/grant agreement

The Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority Board unanimously voted to approve the execution of a $14.51 million Water Project Fund loan/grant agreement between the New Mexico Finance Authority and the ENMWUA on Thursday.

Ten percent of the total funds would be a loan in the amount of $1.451 million and 90 percent of the money would represent a grant for $13.059 million Orlando Ortega, administrator of the ENMWUA, said.

“Funding was earmarked and budgeted for Finished Water 1 (FW1) pipeline construction,” Ortega said in an email. “As part of the execution of this Loan/Grant Agreement, the ENMWUA will need to have each member community also sign the agreement.”

In other business, the board approved a number of easement agreements for Finished Water 3B (FW3B) pipeline.

Ortega said FW3B is the remaining 5.4 mile portion of the pipeline connecting the member community of Portales. “This is for FW3B pipeline project connecting to Portales. Two thirds of the pipeline is already built,” he said.

After signing these easements, that leaves 15 or 16 more that need to be negotiated, as stated in the meeting.

Later, the board heard a presentation from Jim Honea, project manager for Jacobs Engineering, on the quality of the Ute Pipeline reservoir water and testing for level of taste.

Bringing the taste of the lake water to the quality of bottled water would cost, Honea said. The member communities need to decide how much ground water they want to blend with the Reservoir lake water to create their desired level of quality of taste.

The board members discussed how reverse osmosis would improve the taste of the water, but at what cost?

“That analysis has not yet been done,” he said.