The City of Truth or Consequences will plow through about $45 million in water projects over the next three years in its effort to address massive water leaks due to neglected and aged infrastructure.
New City Manager Gary Whitehead briefly told city commissioners the titles and order of the next four water projects at the March 12 city commission meeting. He later met with the Citizen on March 17 to put meat on that outline.
The city will not take on any more water projects in the next three years, since to do so would be beyond the city staff’s administrative capacity, Whitehead said. State and federal loans and grants come with massive accounting, monitoring and reporting requirements in the areas of legal compliance, engineering, construction, bidding and financing. “City staff can’t take any more,” Whitehead said.
Of the $44.73 million in water projects, $34.38 million is grant money, $9.55 million will be long-term loans the city will take out, and $440,000 will be the city’s cash match for one of the projects.
The first project, WSPI 1, water system performance improvements, phase 1, “is ready to go out to bid,” Whitehead said. The city is waiting for final approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is granting the city $2.72 million and loaning the city $4.81 million.
The person who was handling the USDA grant/loan decided to retire when the Trump administration gave federal workers until Feb. 12 to decide whether to resign voluntarily or retire with financial incentives attached, Whitehead said.
The replacement USDA worker was getting up to speed on the project, but paused. He fully expected to be furloughed last week, anticipating that the federal government would shut down. Instead, congress unexpectedly passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through September. The USDA’s permission to start spending should come shortly, Whitehead said, with the project going out to bid in May.
“When WSPI 1 is done,” Whitehead said, “it should solve most of our water-leak problems.”
That’s because WSPI 1 addresses water pressure. “High pressure going through decaying pipes explodes them,” Whitehead said, some areas having 150-psi or pounds of pressure per square inch.
Equalizing the pressure throughout the city will primarily be accomplished by installing “pressure regulation valves,” which are computerized, giving real-time data on water pressure.
WSPI 1 locations of eight pressure regulation valves:
–Near the intersection of Broadway and the New Mexico State Veterans Home
–Broad Street, near where it crosses Corona Street
–Intersection of Morgan Street and Sierra Vista Drive
–Intersection of South Golf Club Drive and Kopra Street
–Intersection of Marie Street and Pershing Street
–Intersection of Pershing Street and 8th Avenue
–Intersection of 9th Avenue and Silver Street
–Intersection of Conchise Way and Bosque Drive
The project also includes new and replacement waterline construction:
–914 linear feet (new construction) near the golf course, Kopra Street
–2,546 LF New School Road
–6,300 LF running along Smith Avenue, connecting with Holden Road and then North Bosque Road
–3,132 LF Silver Street, between Sierra Vista Hospital and T or C Elementary School
The second project is titled the “Shovel-ready Project.” It is funded by two sources, both of which awarded the money in recognition that the city had projects ready to go, having already paid for planning, engineering, design and administration.
The first funding source is $4.4 million in capital outlay collected from Sen. Crystal Brantley, Rep. Gail Armstrong, Rep. Tara Jaramillo (no longer our representative, ousted by Rebecca Dow) and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
The second source of funding is the New Mexico Finance Authority, from its Colonias Infrastructure Fund, which is reserved for water and wastewater projects within 150 miles of the border. The NMFA CIF award is $3.96 million grant, which required a city cash match of $440,000, which will be paid from general obligation bond revenues. T or C residents approved a $3 million bond issue November 2023 for water, wastewater and road construction projects. The NMFA CIF award also required that the city take out a $440,000 low-interest loan from the NMFA, which obligation will be paid from city residents’ water-utility fees.
The total project, with the two sources of funding, is $9.7 million.
Shovel-ready will finish up three projects that had to be cut down, since construction costs went up unexpectedly during and after the covid crisis.
Cost overruns from the Main Street District or MSD or “downtown” water project that will be completed by the Shovel-ready project:
–New and bigger and redundant water tank at the Cook Street Station, where all well water is pumped to be chlorinated before transmission throughout the city
–840 LF of waterline replacement starting on Broadway and continuing along Riverside Drive.
–LF not given; waterline replacement under McAdoo Street near the current police building.
–Five of the city’s six wells (one is not working) to be hooked into a SCADA or supervisory control and data acquisition computer system.
Cost overruns from WSPI 1 that will be addressed by the Shovel-ready project:
–5,900 LF of 12-inch waterline from the Cook Street Booster Station to the Morgan Street water tank
–(LF not given) Several blocks of waterline replacement with 10-inch pipe along 8th and 9th avenues
Cost overruns from a state-funded project, NMFA’s Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund that will be completed by Shovel-ready:
–2,600 LF of eight-inch waterline along 2nd Avenue between Ash and Silver streets
Whitehead said the Shovel-ready project is ready to go out to bid. SmithCo was contracted to work on the MSD downtown water project, so that part of the project will not go out it bid. The city will issue SmithCo a change order. Bid documents will go out about a month after WSPI 1’s bid documents, Whitehead said, so expect public bidding in June.
The third project, “Critical Waterline Replacement,” will provide permanent pipe fixes in two areas where there have been the most water leaks–south of Sierra Vista Hospital and Veater Street and the surrounding “metal streets” north and south of Veater Street. It will probably go out to bid in one year, since it is at the “30-percent design” stage, Whitehead said.
Last legislative session a bill was passed allowing the NMFA’s Water Trust Board to grant the city $14.4 million and loan the city $1.6 million for critical waterline replacement. The city must come up with a $1.6-million match. U.S. Senator from New Mexico Martin Heinrich awarded the city $1.6 million in grant money for critical waterline replacement two years ago, which will be used for the match.
Wilson & Co. has divided the critical waterline replacement project into three phases, but it is unknown how far the $17.6 million will go, since design and estimates are incomplete.
Phase 1 will replace water lines that have hitherto been patched along various streets south of Sierra Vista Hospital.
Phase 2 will replace water lines on streets north of Veater Street and part of Veater Street.
Phase 3 will replace pipes on streets south of Veater Street, all of them named after metals.
The fourth water project is probably “two to two and a half years out,” Whitehead said, and is titled “WSPI 2.”
It is a $9.9-million project, also funded by the USDA–$7.2 million grant and $2.7 million loan.
This project will improve performance by creating “a new 10-inch mainline loop to feed the Village of Williamsburg and to provide hydraulic resiliency to the area,” states a Wilson & Co. presentation document from a June 24, 2024 city commission meeting. “Improvements include gate valves, new service lines, meters, hydrants and accompanying appurtenances.”
This “Veater Street loop” will replace the six-inch line with a 10-inch line. The “loop” will form a “U”, connecting with the Broadway water main. The left or west side of the U will be Hyde Street, the pipe running from Broadway to Veater. The right side of the U will be Platinum Street, the pipe running from Broadway to Veater. Veater’s pipe will complete the bottom of the wide U, running about 20 blocks between Hyde and Platinum streets.
WSPI 2 also includes a very long run of pipe along East Riverside Drive, replacing six-inch with eight-inch pipe. Pershing Street, between Broadway and Riverside, will have four-inch pipe replaced with eight-inch pipe.
Nearly 14,000 linear feet of pipe will be replaced in WSPI 2, with is about 2.6 miles.
Whitehead said he will eventually post maps and a narrative of all four projects on the city’s website.
Hello and THANK-YOU Kathleen for bringing clarity to the public regarding our city water projects. The bits and pieces that are offered sporadically through other news sources were confusing and never conveyed to me a solid plan. I appreciate your diligent reporting and ability to make sense of all this!