Why Is the EPWU Pouring Water Down the Drain for Free?

Something really dramatic happened at Wednesday’s don’t miss PSB meeting: it was disclosed by a representative of the consulting group Malcolm Pirnie/Arcadis that water could be provided to the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park now! For $440,000! No permit required!

Currently, EPWU (our water utility) is dumping 11,000 acre feet of water back into the hands of the El Paso County Water District #1 yearly from the Bustamante Waste Water Treatment Plant. So you know just one acre foot is 325,851 gallons of water. Just do the math. 11,000 acre feet of water is approximately 3.6 billion gallons of water/year!  Conservatively, the Bosque needs 3,500 acre feet and that’s not taking into account how much would be lost to evaporation, transpiration, and aquifer recharge. Whatever – it’s water that could be available now for a $440,000 “fix” according to Fred Bloomberg who presented the Malcolm Pirnie/Arcadis feasibility study for supplying water to the Bosque – a study which seemed at first to focus on a more complicated scheme involving the Bustamante and Jonathan Rogers treatment plants.

When I say that the water utility is dumping 11,000 acre feet of water back into the hands of the water improvement district, I mean that it is giving that water to them for free.  Yet, when it was disclosed that a simple $440,000 fix would provide the Bosque with the water it sorely needs now, CEO Archuleta said that the Rio Bosque would have to pay an estimated $1Million per year for the water. Let’s see now. We are currently giving 11,000 acre feet of water to the water district for free – that’s $7.7Million in water asset we are giving away – and we want to charge for 3,500 acre feet that we are currently dumping. This is akin to a poor beggar coming to someone and asking for a third of their garbage and being told that he must pay for what will be dumped for nothing anyway! Thank heavens for Mayor John Cook who pointed out that the EPWU would be charging the Bosque for water that it is giving away to the water district for free now!

The larger project involving the Bustamante and Rogers Treatment plants has, according to Malcolm Pirnie, a $78Million price tag.  Amortized at 4% for 20 years the cost would be $5,743,000/year. That’s $114,860,000 total.  You wouldn’t want to do this but . . . $440,000 amortized at 4% for 20 years is only a little over $32,000 per year.  

EPWU CFO, Marcela Navarette, stated that the WID was doing EPWU a favor by taking the 11,000 acre feet even if the water district turns around and sells that water downstream. A favor! El Paso City parks alone took 5,000 acre feet of water this year. (Imagine that number when all the new park ponds are completed and more are added as hinted to City Council by City Engineer, Alan Shubert.) EPWU got about 27,000 acre feet of water from the Rio Grande this year. (They have rights to 70,000 acre feet but there’s a drought you will recall.)  So Parks and Recreation uses almost one-fifth of the total river water allowance this year and now plans extra irrigation this winter because of a program to over-seed with rye grass. That 11,000 acre feet of water we give away to the WID for nothing (and the WID then re-sells) would sure come in handy.

Here are some more numbers to swallow. In an earlier elpasonaturally post, it was pointed out that, if only El Paso would help the Bosque be all that it can be, it would mean $18Million in eco-tourist trade based on results at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Read Item #3 of the Headwaters Economics fact sheet on the economic benefits of New Mexico’s natural assets.  So, for $440,000, El Paso could be bringing into its economy $18Million smackers a year!

The good news – PSB members are ready to discuss the $440,000 fix at their upcoming Annual Strategic Planning meeting scheduled for Thursday and Friday, October 11 and 12 at 8:00 am at the TecH2O Center.  (Map)  Put these dates and times on your calendar.

Bottom line: there is just no reason not to “fix” things now so that the Bosque immediately gets the yearly water supply it needs. The fact that there has been resistance from the top brass of the EPWU as shown by foot-dragging, elaborate and costly engineering to distract the public from the real easy and cheap fix along with never divulging the truth to the Open Space Advisory Board that has asked and asked leads to one inescapable question: What’s the deal? What’s the undisclosed deal that seems to have been made with the water district? Inquiring minds want to know. And, cabal or no cabal, what the heck is the matter with supplying water now to the Rio Bosque (a potential $18Million asset for El Paso) when that water is literally going down the drain to the Water Improvement District for free?  I’d love to hear from Ed Archuleta, John Balliew or Marcela Navarette.  What’s the deal?

By the way, one Open Space Advisory Board member gave this comment about the easy fix for the Bosque: “We [the Open Space Advisory Board members] were not told about the cheaper $440,000 project cost when Malcolm Pirnie met with us in August nor that there was no need for permitting to do it.  Correct information has either been withheld from or spun at the Open Space Advisory Board.” Why? What’s the deal?

The Open Space Advisory Board advises City Council. What does the EPWU not want your elected representatives to know? There’s more to interactions with the EPWU than just land sales so it takes more than just the City’s CFO and Deputy City Manager to gain total transparency of the EPWU’s actions. When EPWU can’t be straight with OSAB, a pair of eyes for City Council, one wonders whether anything the Blue Ribbon Committee recommends will ever be totally successful.

And, remember that this coming Monday (September 17) the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee will meet at 8 a.m. in the City Council chambers. The Committee still needs to do all that it was created to do. Read the blog post. There are some very critical questions yet to be addressed  including Ted Houghton’s  questions about water districts and water importation and Charlie Wakeem’s about open space and the still inadequate way inexpediency was addressed in the most current proposed resolution. The Mayor’s new agenda looks as if the Committee can complete its tasks if the will is there and no inappropriate force is applied to oppose such a closure.

Finally, know that the El Paso City Council is having a special meeting this coming Monday, September 17, at 10 a.m. in the 10^th Floor Conference room to decide whether to ban plastic shopping bags, charge a fee, or enhance recycling. The agenda has an attachment about the issue.