By Lynn Janes

On November 21, 2024, the commission held a regular meeting at the city annex building. Chair and Silver City Town Manager Alex Brown opened the meeting.

Raymond De La Vega, Stantec project manager, had an update on the project. They have been working on the basis of design report and laying out the alignment. All of the different departments will be wrapping up by December or the first week in January.

Stantec has been setting out the preliminary alignments. They had just recently met with the Forest Service and Department of Transportation (DOT) to go over the alignments they have been looking at to coordinate with them and find out if they had anything Stantec needed to know beforehand. Stantec had some problems with DOT and will be working to resolve those. De La Vega said specifically it has been highway 152 and highway 180. They have some monuments there and have been working on a resolution.

Currently they have been trying to contact landowners that they will need easements from, and they already have a basic agreement with Freeport McMoRan (FMI) for the south booster station location. It has moved a little bit north from that last location given in the update, but the location will work well.

De La Vega said they had their first operators' meeting to go over the process flow diagram. It had been a lot for the operators to digest for one meeting but a good step forward. They will continue to do the meetings with the operators. The goal will be to meet with the operators the same week as the commission meeting. Although it had been a lot to go over in the first meeting they didn't have any immediate objections. He still had not had any feedback from them.

Stantec still has some obstacles to contend with on the central and west tank locations. De La Vega will be drafting a letter of interest and would like the commission to review it before it is sent out to identified property owners. They have five different possible locations for the west tank. He suggested sending to all and seeing who responded. Several are post office boxes and some out of town. Only certain areas will work because of the need of a certain elevation. The goal will be to match the pressures coming into Arenas Valley and Rosedale, so they continue to receive the same level of service and don't need to change the pressure reducing valves. Also, they will be taking into consideration that if they ever have a need to switch back to Silver City for emergencies, it will be an easy transition.

Arnold Lopez, Santa Clara mayor, said he might know some of the people they would be trying to contact, and he could help. De La Vega thanked him and would be sending him the contacts.

Maya Clifford, Interstate Stream Commission (ISC), joined the meeting online. ISC will be excited to move forward on this allocation or reallocation with the city of Bayard for the $1.34 million.

Clifford reminded the commission she would also need the access agreements for the sites included in phase one. She asked if anyone had any questions. ISC has been working with the Water Trust Board to have an application ready and public.

Priscilla Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments executive director, had provided a report given to the legislative finance committee on the New Mexico Unit Fund. Clifford said right now it stands at about $118 million. The report will be a look back and not forward. The unit fund will only be for Grant, Luna, Hildalgo and Catron Counties. The report will be about what has happened and not what could happen. The fund has made about $30 million since 2012.

Ed Stevens, Hurley mayor, asked if the money will be allocated between the four counties. Clifford said yes. Stevens asked if that would be permanent. She could not answer that question except to say they would still be operating on the old act of the regional boundaries and around the planning activates of the ISC going forward. If she finds out of some change, she will communicate that but has not anticipated a change.

The commission will be using the $1.34 million re-allocated from Bayard for phase one and will be used to do the final design of the Santa Clara well fields. They will need more money to do the final design of both well fields for Hurley and Santa Clara.

[The commission requested capital outlay funds at the Prospector's presentation.]

In the summer the ISC will have construction money available under the unit fund and would like to start focusing on the Hurley wellfields and can connect them to Santa Clara as soon as possible and both will have the use right away.

The commission approved resolution No. 2024-01 identifying the presenters to the ISC regarding the re-allocation of funds request.

The commission will revisit resolution No. 2024-02 in January 2025 authorizing the submission of a notice of intent and funding application for the 2025 colonias infrastructure fund.

Next steps

Brown said the Grant County Water Commission already has a JPA (joint powers agreement) mapping out what they would be doing and activities moving forward. He added they would need to amend the JPA to create a political subdivision. The commission would have to look at different options. One would be subdivided and one stand alone. A standalone can apply for funding on its own and will be needed because of significant amounts of money. Brown did not want to burden one entity. By coming together, they could start generating some revenue and matching funds.

Indira Aguirre, Rural Community Assistance Corporation, asked if they would be contemplating becoming an SB1. An SB1 would also be considered a local government entity. Since this would be a regionalized entity for an entire area. Brown said that would be part of the process having the commission identify exactly how it will be set up. "I would assume that requires legislative authority."

(Author's note. SB1 – Regional Water System Resiliency was a legislation that passed in 2023. See attached pdf of bill)

Lucero said as the funds have been released the NMFA (New Mexico Finance Authority) will be going for two types of services. One will be to help with the regionalization of projects that include legal fees and looking for how to do these projects. If they wait until February, they can do a letter of interest and submit it. At that point NMFA would hire someone to do the analysis and do that set up for the commission. The other part would be assistance in preliminary engineering reports or asset management plans.

Clifford asked the question concerning the potential legislative actions. She wanted to know if going through the process with the DFA (Department of Finance Authority) would be allowing the commission to take ownership of something, like a combined owner and staff. She asked if that had been something the commission had contemplated in the past or is considering for the future. Brown said this process would fine tune and refine specifics on how they would operate in the future. "Technically the way I see it is that at some point, we're going to absorb the work that Hurley has done, the well fields, the work the town of Silver City is doing, PER, what Bayard and Santa Clara are doing. At some point we will all be paying that debt and will be sharing all those costs together."

Lucero asked Aguirre if she could help clarify the regional water bill that had been passed. She said she would have to go read the legislation again to answer. SB1 had been a product of creation for the lower Rio Grande Regional Water Authority. She could breakdown what happened with that and how it would apply to the Grant County Water Commission. It would be the best way to go. Lucero commented it had been intended to facilitate things and not complicate them.

Brown said this would just be a preliminary discussion and they need to look at all the options but keeping in mind they had all agreed in the beginning that each municipality would maintain their own individual water systems.

Kristina Ortiz, USDA Rural Partners Network, had a comment. When she had first read the regionalization bill what caught her eye had been a section that said the regionalization had been developed to give regional authorities or regional agencies the authority to absorb the assets of the communities that it would be taking over. She suggested that they make sure they understand that component. As she understood this regional project would not be taking over any of the assets of the communities but just some operations. So, the JPA might have to be amended to say certain sections of the completed system will be managed by the individual municipalities. "You have to make sure and really look at this because the intent had not been to take over the municipalities assets through this." Both Lucero and Brown agreed.

Stevens asked that someone explain some of what had been just spoken to and the reference to assets of the municipalities. He wanted to have some clarity on what was being discussed. Brown said he would call him the next day. Stevens didn't want to hold up the meeting. It would take a while to clarify all the individual pieces.

Brown said the whole intent has been to share in the costs, so they decreased and made it affordable to everyone.

Lucero and Brown will be presenting at the Prospectors meeting on December 6, 2024. Brown invited all of the mayors to attend with them to show they are all committed to the project and added that it would be nice for the Freeport McMoRan (FMI) representative to be there. Brown wanted the legislators to see how much FMI had stepped up to help the communities.

Next meeting will be held January 23, 2025

Adjourned