In 2014 Smith Engineering was hired by the city to do a phased, 20-year plan for upgrading the wastewater system.
In 2020 Wilson & Company was hired to do an asset management plan, which similarly made recommendations for phased upgrades.
Now, at the Feb. 26 meeting, the city commission approved another wastewater engineering study of the whole system. Let me rephrase that. The city commission approved applying for a $191,000 grant/loan from the New Mexico Finance Authority’s Colonias Infrastructure Fund, which will be used to purchase the engineering study.
A 10 percent cash match will be required, and the city will also have to borrow 10 percent or $19,100 from NMFA, with interest, if the grant/loan is awarded. The nearly $40,000 will come out of the wastewater department’s utility-fee revenue, Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez told city commissioners.
I wish we had had a little history lesson before going forward with another grant/loan/engineering study.
Are we following the 2014 master plan that was supposed to see us through to 2034? What phased projects recommended by the study were completed? A recent IPRA I did revealed the city spent $11 million on the wastewater system between 2016 and 2020, which were related to that study.
The 2020 Wilson & Company study stated that some of the 2014 study’s phases were completed, but didn’t say whether that plan would be followed or not. The study seemed to start back at square one, evaluating the age and location of the assets as best they could, having to rely on “institutional knowledge” in the absence of records.
City Manager Gary Whitehead and Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez said this new study will essentially map and create a computerized monitoring system, a hydraulic model, that will give real-time read outs of pressure and capacity of the sewer system. Wilson & Co. completed the same computerized system for the water system about a year ago.
Whitehead also reminded city commissioners that a fix for creating a records system is in place. Last-City Manager Angela Gonzales put the purchase of iWorks software in last year’s budget for every department. As far as asset records go, besides the main wastewater treatment plant, there are 61 miles of sewer line and 1,000 manholes, Whitehead said. How close the department is to using iWorks for daily record keeping was not revealed at the meeting.
Until iWorks is in use, it appears that the city will continue to rely on periodic engineering studies to tell them what state the city’s sewer system is in and what it should do about it and in what order.
Maybe the city will eventually have department directors who write their own asset management plans, scheduling appropriate maintenance and replacement tasks on a weekly, monthly, yearly, five-, 10-, 20-year basis. Regular and scheduled repairs and replacements at reasonable costs, instead of gargantuan, system-wide, phased capital projects every year for years.
I stopped adding up the cost of various phases in the 2020 Wilson & Co. study when it exceeded way over $200 million. The study projected the wastewater department’s 5 percent yearly rate increases over 20 years or so as part of its “suggestions for funding.” That fee revenue was deemed only enough for operations, it said, but not for capital projects.
The explanation for this money-eating operation is, no doubt, long-term neglect. The city staff spends an inordinate amount of time reacting, reacting, reacting to line breaks, sewer back ups and the Riverside Drive sewer vacuum system breakdowns. No records, no asset management, no planning for 70 years or so, it gets mighty expensive to address massive decay.
With President Donald Trump cutting federal funding, it seems likely that the NMFA’s Colonias Infrastructure Fund will dry up, since it is fed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The city has depended on Colonias funding for a large portion of its water and wastewater projects. The $11 million spent on the wastewater treatment plant from 2016 to 2020 all came from NMFA Colonias Infrastructure Funds.
Tired of reading and rereading about the cities ineptitude when it comes to spending tax payer money. Time to see about charges of malfeasance if any would stick around in office long enough.