It appears that the rising cost-estimates of the Cantrell Dam project—from about $2 million to $8 million—are related to liability and private property, as briefly and insufficiently explained by Wilson & Co. engineer Stephen Ingles-Garcia at the Aug. 28 city commission meeting.
Wilson & Co. was hired a year after a July 2020 rain that dropped about five inches in an hour in the southeastern part of T or C, the Village of Williamsburg and Sierra County’s fairground. That’s where the most damage occurred, but there was damage throughout T or C. The city commission declared a state of emergency and applied for New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management relief funds, which were capped at $750,000 at the time, which the city has not received, Mayor Rolf Hechler said, during the July 14 city commission meeting.
Cantrell Dam is nearly a straight line north of the Sierra County fairground and just north of Interstate 25. It breached during the flood. The city owns and is obligated to maintain the dam, although city leaders have never explained how the city acquired this burden.
The city applied for a grant/loan from the New Mexico Finance Authority’s Water Trust Board for “flood protection,” Ingles-Garcia said. It received $450,000 grant and $300,000 loan that required the city to put in a cash match of $75,000 in July 2021.
Someone at the city hired the city’s on-call engineering firm, Wilson & Co., the scope of their work not explained by city staff or the city commission. It was revealed at the Aug. 28 meeting; therefore it’s difficult to tell if mission creep is part of the increasing estimated cost of the project.
Ingles-Garcia’s written presentation, given to me by Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez, stated, under the rubric “funding application scope,” was “To plan, design, environmental permitting, right-of-way appraisals and land acquisition, for the reconstruction of Cantrell Dam. The project goal is to provide flood protections for the downtown communities of Truth or Consequences and Village of Williamsburg.”
For more detail on Cantrell Dam, please see: https://sierracountycitizen.org/cantrell-dam-costs-swell-to-nearly-8-million/
Mayor Rolf Hechler asked Ingles-Garcia if the city should “aggregate” Cantrell Dam with other projects “and apply for everything.”
“I would not recommend that,” Ingles-Garcia said. “You have liability because there is no design [for Cantrell Dam]. I recommend you keep it separate.”
Wilson &Co. has asked various agencies for design documents on Cantrell Dam and found none. It recommends partially destroying the dam instead of fixing it, because there are no design plans. The city would have to start from scratch, designing and building the dam, and enlarging it to become “jurisdictional.” Currently the Cantrell Dam is “non-jurisdictional.” It only holds back 6.9 acre feet of water, and the minimum for a jurisdictional dam that is regularly inspected by the Office of the State Engineer’s Dam Safety department is 15 acre feet, Ingles-Garcia said.
Ingles-Garcia did not say explicitly that the OSE would require the city to build back Cantrell Dam as a jurisdictional dam. “A reconstructed dam will be jurisdictional according to OSE.” A bullet point below says, “enlargement of dam pool volume,” which implies the OSE would require the dam to hold back 15 acre feet.
Ingles-Garcia’s presentation also states the Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land on which Cantrell Dam sits, would have to give the city “right-of-way,” a process that could take three years and one that must be done with “OSE coordination and approval.”
Ingles-Garcia did not explain why having no design documents makes the city more liable than having a dam with design documents. My guess is that anyone could claim their 2020 flood damage was caused by the city’s neglect to maintain the dam, and since there are no documents of any standards or capacity, the city couldn’t disprove the claim.
Later in his presentation he said breaching the dam instead of rebuilding it “removes risk of dam failure,” another ominous indicator of the city’s liability risk until the dam is erased from its responsibilities.
Ingles-Garcia said they scrapped the “study phase” design (estimates for project cost about $2 million), which also included breaching, not fixing, Cantrell Dam. That initial design raised parts of Cook Street. It also had improvements on the arroyo paralleling Johnson Road. Much of that work, they learned, would affect private property. Property would have to be purchased and easements acquired.
The new plan avoids that, Ingles-Garcia implied, but didn’t give details. The new plan also shows work on the arroyo parallel to Johnson Road, so it’s unclear what changed. And this plan takes in “three or four arroyos,” Ingles-Garcia said, implying the second plan will protect a larger area.
If I understood Ingles-Garcia correctly, an expensive detention pond must be built because the arroyo capacity they thought they could increase in the first plan is not possible because of its effect on private property. Arroyos can’t carry the water to the river fast enough to prevent flooding. Therefore the water has to be captured and retained before it hits the neighborhoods south of Interstate 25.
The detention pond is to be sited two blocks north of Cook Street and south of Interstate 25. It will hold 27 acre feet. The plan shows the Johnson Road arroyo will be improved to handle any runoff the detention pond can’t handle during a flood.
Ingles-Garcia estimated the dam breach will cost $250,000.
The detention pond will cost $4.5 million.
The storm drain and other “conveyance improvements/Cook St. Crossing” will cost $2.5 million.
That totals $7.25 million. Without accounting for another $250,000, Ingles-Garcia estimates total construction cost will be $7.5 million without taxes and $8 million with taxes.
Ingles-Garcia’s presentation is not in the city packet and is therefore not available online.
I have questions into the city commission, City Manager Angela Gonzales and Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez that center on the city’s liability and reasons for pursuing this expensive project now.
Mayor Rolf Hechler asked if the $8 million “will fix the problem,” presumably referring to the flooding that occurred in southeast T or C and Williamsburg. Ingles-Garcia said, “I’ll get to that.” He never answered Hechler’s question directly, but it appear the second plan’s enlarged flood protection area will fix the problem.
Hechler and Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister asked Alvarez if Sierra County and the Village of Williamsburg have been approached for funding. “There have been no offers and they have been apprised,” Alvarez said.
Forrister said the county should want to fund the project, since it would protect the fairgrounds, which are getting a major uplift—it’s the county’s major capital project on the board. “It’s not much of a priority for the county,” Alvarez responded.
Hechler directed staff to contact Flood Commissioner Sandy Jones for help with funding, noting that city property owners “pay taxes.” Property owners in incorporated and unincorporated areas in the county pay $1.50 per $1,000 assessed property value for flood control, which brings in about $500,000 a year. Jones oversees those funds.
No action was taken on the new plan, that is, the city commission did not move to accept it. It was an informational, non-action item on the agenda.