okay and you're live
all right thank you uh
we are going to call this work session
of the utilities board to order
and i'm going to turn the floor over to
adrian widmer
thank you mr chairman commissioners i'm
adrian whitmer i'm the deputy director
for water
i'm terribly sorry that my video isn't
showing uh something being odd with that
so you're just going to have to look at
my photo
thank you very much we are going to um
john shoemaker and associates is going
to present where we're at with the
10-year water development
action plan implementation right now
drafts for the draw down warning
indicator water supply
availability for the corlitos and net
pocket basins
and the water supply availability for
the members basin have been completed
today they are currently working on the
reclaimed water and asr
evaluation and recommendations and when
we're through with this
if you all will then think about because
there are two additional
water supply development alternatives
that they can take a look at
for us for you all to start thinking
about that perhaps
um either by the end of this meeting
you'll have an idea or even
via next week as there are legal
implicit
implications uh related with any and all
of these
but with that we can go ahead and get
started and annie mccoy is with
shoemaker and associates and she's going
to start out
annie
okay great is um is someone on your end
going to share a screen
and pull up the presentation
was alma going to do that it'll be
delilah
oh shoot and i apologize i know we've
been having some technical difficulties
i need to pull that up now that wasn't
part of my usb hold on one
and i'm sorry annie if you want to start
with an introduction just give me a
moment or if you
mr chair just a moment i'll get that
pulled up
i could just start with a little
introduction um
thank you chairman and commissioners and
adrian um
for giving us the opportunity to talk
today
about progress we've been making on the
um the las cruces 10-year water
development
action plan um which we developed in
coordination
uh with adrian and with dr garcia
as a follow-on to the 40-year water
planning process
and today i wanted to provide an update
on two components
of the water development action plan
that are currently in draft form the
draw down warning indicator and
the updated study of groundwater
availability uh
for the correlitos basin in the nut
hocket basin
so i'll probably just um wait for the
presentation to pop up to start talking
a little bit about the uh
drawdown warning indicator uh the memo
that we've prepared
um that has a draft date of uh
may 2020
okay great yeah um
and this this memo has already been
through several
rounds of review uh with the utility
staff
um basically uh the drawdown warning
indicator
uh has been developed by defining
water level decline rates that would
lead to
water level declines approaching a
threshold of irreversible subsidence
near the end of the 40-year planning
period
um the threshold of irreversible society
subsidence for
the valley well field in the messiah
basin
has been defined at about 665
feet from below the pre-development
water levels in the area
um the threshold for the east mesa
could be significantly less than that
um it should be noted that the scope of
of this current drawdown warning
indicator
study does not really address actions to
be taken
in the case that um that rates are
exceeded at individual wells or groups
of wells
even though that's going to be an
important topic to address going forward
we can go to the next slide
please yeah so this is a hydrogeologic
cross section
um through the las cruces area from
southwest to northeast
um it shows the threshold of
irreversible subsidence
there's sort of this blue shaded area
and a light blue line
[Music]
i guess the downside of this is i don't
have a pointer to be able to point it
point you to it so
as estimated in the messiah valley based
on a method developed by
the usgs about 660 feet below
pre-development water levels
then a smaller value of about 400 feet
below pre-development water level was
chosen as a conservative value for the
east mesa welfield area
and for the west mesa welfield area
let me interrupt for a moment
commissioner you've had a comment
i got a question or two us i've been
through this uh
presentation and there's been a few pla
few uh terminologies that i didn't quite
understand
so i'd ask you to to explain some of the
unusual
type of names which are are in the whole
presentation
but in this particular one um
do you have a level where the water
turns from fresh
to salt water is there a line or
an area there so this
cross section does show
sort of a zone were
t the total dissolved solids sort of
reflective of water quality in general
yeah sort of 500 to a thousand
milligrams per liter
the idea that um that it drops off
so um probably when you
start to approach this draw down warning
indicator this
warning indicator that's based on water
level declines
at the same time that's probably when
you would be seeing
water quality dropping off to the point
that you would need to treat the water
because the total dissolved solids would
be getting too high
i mean it's a it's a secondary drinking
water standard right
non-enforceable but um there would be
aesthetic issues related with the to the
water to the saltiness of the water
so that would be sort of occurring in
tandem
as you would be approaching this this
drawdown warning indicator that we're
talking about
what's the tandem uh the draw
the deterioration of water quality
and the as the water levels are dropping
towards what we're calling this
threshold of irreversible subsidence
which would be sort of a compaction of
the sedimentary aquifer
to the point where you would lose the
ability to recharge the aquifer you
would lose
the the ability to store water
effectively
in in in the aquifer which is something
that we don't want
to have happen of course yeah thank you
um so let's
see so we're
sort of talking about that that uh
depth to the threshold of irreversible
subsidence in the valley area
and then assuming a a little bit smaller
value more like 400 feet for the east
mesa and the west mesa areas
um so
the other thing i should draw your
attention to is is that there's sort of
the pre-development
water levels sort of the water levels in
the basins
um before we started pumping groundwater
so historically going back in time and
then we have to make some assumption
about our current water levels
and in some cases those might be 50 or
60 feet
lower than the pre-development water
levels
and sort of factor that into the
equation
um so uh that sort of
zone that's shaded in blue between the
pre-development water levels
and this threshold we're talking about
shaded in blue it includes saturated
thickness
in the upper sanofi group aquifer
and the upper part of the middle santa
fe group aquifer and you'll notice that
we
that las cruces does have some deeper
supply wells that are
are completed even deeper than that um
so we wouldn't want to see draw down
into that
zone sort of below the blue shaded zone
we can move to the next slide
so this is a schematic cross-section
based on the one we just saw and it's
just sort of a simple
simplification showing that blue shaded
zone
between the water level and the
threshold of irreversible subsidence
and to preserve the aquifer we want to
avoid
irreversible subsidence and compaction
of the aquifer
which would mean diminished capacity for
aquifer recharge in the future
and we want to build in a margin of
safety
so you see right above threshold of
irreversible subsidence you see
safety margin we kind of took a 20
margin
and then we have what we called the draw
down
threshold to which drawdown in wells
should be limited
so water level trends
um
oh here's john we're making our way
through
i just saw jim ask a question
yes this is carmichael uh amy uh is
any any indicated actions
regarding the fact that we have existing
wells
with maximum depths uh beyond the
threshold well
you know i mean dating back to 2011
we've had a really good water level
monitoring program
for the city um and
so in terms of developing drawdown
threshold you know i think there's no
concern
really in having these deeper wells uh
but you know the important thing is that
we monitor the water level trends
for these wells um and if we saw what
trends in water levels um that were
signaling an approach to this drawdown
threshold
over the 40-year period that's when
we would be wanting to do further
evaluation
and take actions
so we can uh
we can move to the next slide
this is a table summarizing the the
variables that we've
defined um in the messiah basin in the
valley
area and on the west mesa and then in
the hornada basin
in the east mesa area this subsidence
threshold
that we have defined as a decline from
the current water level
we've defined it about 610 feet in the
valley
in about 330 feet for the west mesa and
the east mesa
then we we build in a 20
safety margin and then in order to
arrive at this
drawdown threshold that we don't want to
see
exceeded in terms of water level
declines
in the city's wells we can
take that subsidence threshold subtract
out the safety margin
and then we know the number that we
don't want to exceed
so then in terms of talking about a
drawdown
warning indicator something that would
trigger that we were
headed in the in a bad direction
we can look at it in terms of an average
water level decline rate
like a straight line um
and that's what we're calling drawdown
warning indicator one
or we can look at it in terms of if we
saw
the rate of water level decline
uh accelerating getting steeper and
steeper
that would also be problematic and
that's what we're calling drawdown
warning indicator two
so for indicator one we just have an
average decline rate
we wouldn't want to exceed 12 feet per
year
in the valley area and on the west and
east mesa it's
closer to 7 feet per year
in terms of indicator 2 we wouldn't want
to see
more than a 10 annual
acceleration in the rate of water level
declines
or about 3 annually
for the west and east mesas
uh so we can go to the next slide
uh so this graph kind of provides the
visual representation
of the drawdown warning indicators for
wells in the valley
in the i25 corridor areas
we've sort of we've sort of selected
sentinel wells from the water level
monitoring program
that we want to look at more carefully
trying to make sure these wells have
sort of a good
representation in terms of spatially and
with depth and these are also wells that
have a clear trend already established
through the water level monitoring
program going back to
2011 these wells
have a average decline rate of only
about
one foot per year uh so
you know when we're looking at this and
evaluating whether we might have a
problem you know we are going to look
first at drawdown warning indicator one
okay we're nowhere near an average
decline rate of 12 feet per year
right we have an average decline rate of
about one foot per year
in these wells um so we're thinking okay
things are looking pretty good in terms
of the average decline rate
then we want to look at indicator 2 and
we want to look out
for any acceleration of the water level
declines and so that's going to be
something we're going to be looking out
on in a 10 or 20-year time frame
as the monitoring program goes forward
so we can go to the next slide
so you know the story is a little
different um
on the east mesa um we
have some fairly steep water level
declines
um you know generally three or four feet
per year
in most of um the wells we're monitoring
out there
but up getting close in in one well to
um six feet per year so we're getting
close to that drawdown warning indicator
number one um and obviously
any acceleration decline would be a real
problem
on the east mesa as well um and even i
though i said that the um that the scope
um
of this current study doesn't really
include um
evaluation of actions um to
um to sort of curb this draw down
um but you know in a general sense
and we've included it in this current
draft of the memo
um a larger well field with pumping
distributed over a larger area
with more wells could help
with this with the drawdown in some of
these wells
that we are seeing on the east mesa
so we we can move to the next slide
um which is for the east or for the west
mesa
and right now uh we really only have um
one well that we've selected as a
sentinel well
on the west mesa and you know we're
currently working on that with the water
level monitoring program
to expand and improve the monitoring
on the west mesa to eventually um
you know being able to add other wells
um
as sentinel wells um on the west mesa
but in this well we only again we only
see a
drawdown um on average about one foot
per year
um and so you compare that to drawdown
warning indicator one
yeah we're nowhere close to six or seven
feet per year um and then we want to be
looking forward as the monitoring
program goes forward to see if we're
seeing any acceleration in the rates of
decline
um and so with this slide
we um the next slide segways to
the other study that we've been working
on um
so i don't know if we have any questions
that we want to
discuss about the drawdown warning
indicator
um right now or or wait
uh wait till the end of the presentation
and then have some more discussion
um annie this is delilah i'm sure you'd
rather handle questions
regarding the drawdown indicator first
before we move to the next study
sure
and i'll leave it up to the chair to
recognize the next speaker for questions
okay let's go on with the presentation
oh jim has a question
uh yeah this carmichael um
later uh this may be a question for
adrian
today we're gonna be talking about uh
well 40
on the east mesa that uh
has has one of the better
situations as far as rate of drawdown i
guess
on the east mesa but it still
i think was identified at like two and a
half foot per year or something like
that
and given uh what this study has
uncovered
[Music]
has the staff reviewed that
and is there anything different that we
should consider at this point in terms
of redrilling
well 40 on east mesa
chairman commissioner carmichael that's
a really good question
and when we look at that the east mesa
is a mined basin so either way
the aquifer is going to get um
drawn down well 40
kind of as annie mentioned uh if you
have more wells out there
then that means the pumping of each of
the wells is going to be at a lower rate
right now a lot of those wells
especially with 1240 down we've been
running them
nearly uh 24 7. really good example of
that as well
68. well 68 is presently running 24
7 and that's for a couple of reasons
uh one of them is that it can run that
and it's never going to get to
its maximum amount that it can actually
pull out of the aquifer
so yes we're going to keep an eye on it
and that's why we
like having this discussion in here and
we
have the drawdown warning indicator so
we can
keep an eye on that because then we can
always take a look and say
what other pumping regimes can we
use in order to minimize the draw down
in one particular area as opposed to
another
so it is something that we look at but
we do have to realize
that no matter what this is a mind
aquifer
and then on top of that actually as part
of our permitting process
it was not going to be unusual to see
anywhere from two to six feet
draw down no matter what
okay thank you commissioner
yes just give me a second to unmute um
uh now as i understand it the west mesa
well is
tied into the rest of the city's water
supply right
adrian
mr chairman commissioner
the west mesa does have connection into
the rest of the water system across
the river in one place is that what
you're talking about
yes yes and absolutely
um as growth continues for the city of
las cruces
and demand for water increases as part
of the master plan that was completed
back in 2008
there is um actually even before 2008 it
was the previous one
uh there is additional river crossing
that needs to
occur in which case then we will be
able to utilize more of the west mesa
water as
demand increases and exceeded
okay but what percentage of uh the
cities uh not counting the west mesa
industrial american airport what
percentage of the city
uh's water comes from the west mason now
it is fairly minimal okay
uh yeah i was wondering about that
because i actually surveyed for that
pipeline
uh when before it was put in but what i
really want to know
is what percentage of the city's water
supply
is comes from the east coronado
aquifer and what comes from the valley
mr chairman commissioner we can
certainly
look that up um as you know we're only
using approximately
19 000 to 20 000 acre feet a year and
our main water right the lrg 430
is uh 21 869 acre feet
and up on the east is 10
200 so uh we're
i'd say at least 75 percent is coming
from the valley from the lrg 430
but we can get you a um a more
precise number if you would like
uh no that's fine about 25.75 then huh
yes sir as a as a rough estimate unless
yeah and pull that um because i know
that she's been working on the
how much water actually has been used
over the last year so she may actually
have a better number than i do
off the top of her head oh that's okay
thank you thank you mr chair
okay mr chair would you like annie to
proceed yes please
teresa so we've prepared this updated
study of groundwater availability in the
corralitos basin in the nut hocket basin
we'd previously studied these basins for
the city
back in 2004 and
now we have um an up updated study
um that's in draft form with a date of
march
2020 and uh is under review
by city staff currently um
the corralitos basin and the nut pocket
basin
uh represent two potential sources for
alternate groundwater supply uh for the
city
the corralitos basin uh really only has
one water right that may become
available for transfer
up to about 1500 acre feet per year
and in the nut hocket basin pumping for
irrigated agriculture
has been estimated by the state engineer
in recent years to be about 13 500
acre feet per year in terms of net
pumping
or the consumptive use portion
and that would represent you know the
maximum amount of
groundwater that could be exported from
that basin
we can go to the next slide
so this map shows um the
boundaries of these basins the corralito
space and
kind of in the center of the map there
with the black dashed line
and then the nut hocket basin over
to the west northwest with respect to
las cruces city limits and this map also
shows
land ownership most of it you're seeing
the blm lands shaded in yellow
and the state lands shaded in blue and
private lands
in white um and we've
added some hypothetical pipeline roots
obviously a pipeline from the las cruces
airport area to the corralitos basin
uh wouldn't be a very long pipeline and
it would cross
blm and state lands before entering
private land in the
corralitos basin and a
pipeline to the nut pocket basin would
be much longer
and could utilize right-of-way along
i-10 and along the rail railroad
possibly as well
before cutting north across blm
uh state and private lands um
before reaching highway right of way to
enter into the nut hockey basin
that north-south stretch could be
aligned to maximize
crossing of state lands and minimize the
crossing of of blm and private lands
and we can go to the next slide please
so here is the basin boundary for the
corralitos basin
and then we're showing the las cruces
airport
area down there in the lower
right um and we're showing the
uh target aquifer in the corralitos
basin
in sort of a yellow or tan shading the
upper santa fe
group aquifer and the irrigation wells
that have
been developed in that aquifer
so the upper santa fe group aquifer is
up to 250 feet thick
and we've updated our estimates of
groundwater and storage
in the corralitos basin and it's
about a hundred and thousand to about
000 acre feet of recoverable groundwater
and storage
and based on the maximum water right
that could be transferred from the basin
this is about a hundred year
water supply and the hypothetical
pipeline route we're showing is about
six miles and um
for this study we estimate that another
couple miles
of um of collector
lines would probably be needed to
develop the
well field in the corralitos basin
and we can go to the next slide
so we put together a straw man
development
plan for the corralitos basin just to
give an idea
of what kind of time frame and what kind
of steps would be involved
to develop a groundwater supply there
and the first step
would be evaluation of existing wells
which could take place over about a one
year period
obviously if the well owner
if it was acceptable to the well owner
and
the city wanted to engage in doing that
the well evaluation would really be
about evaluating the water quality and
how it compares to drinking water
standards
evaluating well production and
the condition of the wells whether the
existing wells could be used for
municipal supply or whether
replacement wells would be required
um the next step in the correlitos basin
would be establishing
full beneficial use of the water right
because it
it appears that the the full water right
as declared has not been
fully put to beneficial use for
irrigation
historically so that would be another
place where if the if the city chose to
do so
the city could assist with putting that
water to beneficial use for irrigation
um first uh to demonstrate full
beneficial use
before applying to the state engineer or
to transfer the right for municipal use
which would follow on as a three or more
year
process and that could be
in tandem with the environmental
assessment process
that would be required for pipeline
infrastructure to cross blm
lands and would also probably be a three
or more year process
uh following a favorable opinion
from the state engineer's office and
blm record of decision to allow the
building of a pipeline across to the
corralitos basin then the construction
of the infrastructure
and the rehabilitation or the
replacement of wells could take place
over a two or three year period
so you're looking at a total time period
of
10 years at least for developing a
project in the corralitos basin
we can go to the next slide
this map is showing the uh basin
boundary for the nut hocket basin
um and showing locations of wells used
for irrigation
and for dairy use and also
uh for municipal use uh for village of
hatch
um in the nut hocket basin and here the
upper santa fe group aquifer
is again the primary target aquifer and
it's up to 500 feet thick here so
thicker than in the corralitos basin um
and in some places it's underlain
by saturated uh bell top formation
and there are wells that are completed
in in both of those aquifers
um and so if you include the bell top
formation
some areas you have aqua for saturated
thickness up to 900 feet
so recharge has been estimated at only
840 to about 2500
acre feet per year um
for the nut hocket basin and if you
compare that
to estimated net pumping in the basin of
13 500 acre feet per year
you see that pumping has
greatly exceeded estimated recharge to
the basin
um over the last uh 50-year period
and so many wells have water level
declines
in an average rate of three feet per
year
um is typical although there are some
wells that have more complicated trends
and no clear overall trend
and recent data on water levels
in the last few years is lacking for the
basin
[Music]
we have laid out this hypothetical
pipeline route that would be over 60
miles long
to reach the basin and estimated that
another 12 miles
of collector lines would also be needed
to develop a well field
in the nut hocket basin
i think we can go to the next slide
so we put together a straw man
development plan for the nut hocket
basin
at this really preliminary planning
stage it's impossible to know
um which specific water rights might
become available for lease or purchase
in the basin
but it might be reasonable to assume
that about 4 000 acre feet per year
may be available in any given year
that's a
little less than a third of the net
pumping in the basin
and that is equivalent to maybe
four of the larger licensed or
adjudicated water rights
in the basin
so the evaluation of wells that step
would take a little bit longer
two to three years because of the um
there will be more wells to evaluate and
more well owners to interface with and
the application to the state engineer
to transfer water rights um
may take about three or more years
similar to to in the corralitos basin
even though potentially more rights
could be transferred um and and that is
true of the environmental assessment
process as well
which again could be performed in tandem
with application to the state engineer
and then construction of infrastructure
and rehabilitation or replacement of
wells would take
longer six to seven years um we
just estimate based on the amount of
infrastructure that would need to be
constructed and potentially more wells
that would
need to be replaced or rehabilitated
so then you're looking at maybe a 15
or more year period to develop a water
supply project
in the nut hocket basin
okay uh commissioner sorg
all right thank you thank you i have a
question but i'll wait
till she gets done very good
go ahead go ahead okay i think we can go
to the next slide
this is a table summarizing and
comparing aquifer properties
for the two basins correlatos and nut
hocket
basins in both cases the upper santa fe
group is our
primary target aquifer and the aquifer
thickness
is thicker in the nut pocket basin
depth to water is similar in the two
basins
total well depths may be deeper
in the nut pocket basin especially in
places where the wells are completed in
the upper santa fe group and the
underlying bell top formation
and well yields may be higher in the nut
hocket basin
and hydraulic conductivity or
permeability may be similar for the two
basins
uh this would suggest this information
here would suggest that
that it may be a little bit higher in
the corralitos basin
um but that's based on a fewer number of
wells that are all located
within very close proximity to one
another
uh so in reality permeability of the
aquifer may be
similar in the two basins
and we can go to the next slide
and we've also presented here a summary
of the groundwater quality for the two
basins
in the corralitos basin the total
dissolved solids
and sulfate concentrations may be
elevated above the secondary
aesthetic related drinking water
standard
the non-enforceable standards um
and in the nut hocket basin um
total arsenic down at the bottom the
very last line on the table
may be elevated in some wells in some
locations
above the primary health related
standard
um and no data were available for the
correlato space and
thus you know emphasizing the importance
of
the well evaluation uh component
of of the a development plan um
there was uh one sample in the nut
hocket basin with elevated iron and
aluminum above secondary standards
and no data available for the correlato
space and
so again the importance of of a well
evaluation
i totally love solids
i'd have to treat it
so um we can go ahead
to the next slide if you're if you're
ready um
this is a summary table comparing some
capital costs
some estimates of capital costs that we
put together
for the corralitos basin for the nut
hockett basin
in terms of the amount of water that
could be available we're looking at
about potentially three times as much
water in the nut hockey basin
as in the corlitos basin
in terms of costs for the well
evaluation component
um we estimated 340 000
um for the correlatos and about 550
000 for the nut pocket basin
in terms of the cost to purchase the
water rights
we estimated about 5.9 million dollars
for corleto space and and 17.5 million
dollars
in the nut pocket basin based on
the similar pricing to
main stem rio grande rights
the cost of constructing a pipeline
about 9.5 million dollars for the
corralitos
and almost an order magnitude more 79.2
million dollars in the nut hockett basin
and that's based on costs that were
available for
similar pipeline projects
such as the um a component of the ute
pipeline project in eastern new mexico
called their interim groundwater
pipeline project
and um and then the cost to drill new
wells
you know assuming that existing wells
would not be
able to be rehabilitated that would be
somewhat would probably be somewhat
cheaper than having to drill new wells
estimated those costed about 16.2
million dollars
in the corralitos basin and 105.2
million dollars
in the nut pocket basin and then we
broke these
costs down in terms of the cost per acre
foot of water
for municipal supply and the cost for
the coral easter
coralitos basin came out to about 11 000
and the cost for the nut pocket basin
came out to more than twice that much
more like twenty four thousand dollars
so these were um you can go to the next
slide these were the elements of the two
studies that we wanted to
share with you today before opening it
up to
questions and discussion
mr chairman go ahead yeah this is
ed yeah it looks to me like the
corollita's water would have to be
treated
because the tds is almost a thousand
parts per million
and the sulfates are high too so it's
almost a desalination project
don't you think
any would it be a desalinization problem
yeah well i mean those values range
let me see if i i don't want to leave
them
the meeting here to pull up the the
table there there's a range of values
you know it may still be worthwhile to
to proceed
you know if they're if the owner of the
water rights in the wells
you know was willing and interested it
might be worthwhile
to go to the um well evaluation
component of of that project to get
better information on water quality
and it depends on how much above the
um standard of 500 that the city would
be
um willing to go if any
you know obviously some communities um
use drinking water that has tds elevated
above
the uh secondary standard
yeah but with the sulfates being high
and that sodium and chloride
are high too it seems to me like it's a
it's
uh and people are used to drinking water
less than 500 parts per million
i think you almost have to look at
desalination as a possibility
for that water we're blending with other
waters
ryan blender right mr chairman
okay commissioner annie could you go
back one slide
or whoever is controlling the slides go
back one
just reverse one one slide is that
um was that delilah
delilah sorry i knew how to go forward
but evidently backwards
that's it you got her
um so i think this might be a question
for our staff
more so
what is the cost per acre foot of the
water we use
now in las cruces
averaging all the water we use from all
the walls and so on
um adrian or joe would you have that
information on hand
offhand of the per acre foot cost
mr chairman commissioner right now
actually
utilizing and joe can correct me it's
running
um a little bit i think it's like about
um a dollar nine
what yeah i think uh joe can
i think he's come up with a dollar nine
but that's
you know that's because we already own
it right
if we were out buying water rights right
now
uh wet water rights you're talking
probably about sixteen hundred to two
thousand dollars an acre foot
sixteen hundred to two thousand
okay so um
all right that that's what we'd have to
compare we wanna talk about opportunity
cost
um but anyway now sixteen hundred to two
thousand dollars
so that's what five times more
cost with the quarterly's base than the
loan wouldn't it be oh yeah
yeah okay and then
as far as the nut hacket pocket basin
um you know if you if if there's a
um if those uh
agricultural people there want to keep
their water that price
might even go higher um i know if i was
in their shoes
i would want a pretty penny for the
water rights there
especially since the water's good i
think right
uh the water was better
good quality i mean anyway so
yeah i i would even say that might be a
little more expensive and then
the cost per acre foot there is really
high
we we well we need we need to uh
compare um what we can do
with our own water we have now to
uh extend it get the the
use per capita down more
so we don't have to go to these
expensive waters or at least not
sooner rather than later this is william
little
uh i let me share with you uh
plans uh this briefing today
this work session is
going to lead to another work session
once the board has had a chance to
digest
all the data we've gotten since last
night
and i anticipate that that work session
will be
among the board
and utilities staff
and we will have to all
bring our calculators and our
whiteboards
and talk about all this stuff
in excuse me in in considerable
detail so this is just the beginning not
the end
okay thank you i have one question
the corollitos basin
is geologically and hydrologically part
of the
lower rio grande basin is that right
yeah i'll let um i'll let john address
some questions now if you'd like i'm not
sure if he's still on but
yeah mr chairman and commissioners
uh yes i think the correlitos basin's
part of the
of the lrg administratively
so um one
shadow over its use is
uh texas be new mexico
i think that shadow hangs over both
these possibilities actually
uh so uh so the nut pocket is also uh
somehow or another uh
covered by the suit
yes i i think it is that that's a legal
question
really but but geologically and
hydrologically not rocket is
is associated with the rio grande it's
tributary to the rio grande
ground water system at least and
the rio grande project
the map encompasses all of it and more
okay thank you okay
go more questions
mr chairman just for clarification what
you're saying is that
this is just a briefing of this part of
the
of the possibilities for additional
water and i agree with
commissioner sorg that we need to take a
look at what we can do with what we have
more conservation more reclamation reuse
and desalination before we start looking
at importation
or at least look at them all
simultaneously together
to make sure that we've got the you know
the best water for the least cost
and for the long-term solutions of the
basin
agreed uh as they say that the
expectation is that
sometime soon we will
we will uh have a work session
with with the board and staff to talk
about
everything we've heard today plus the
possibilities for
aquifer storage and reuse the
possibilities for
more robust conservation
and uh
also other sources of water including
desalinization so that
at the end of that work session or
sessions
we should be in a position to give uh
utility staff guidance as to the
options to continue to pursue on a
planning basis
and an attempt to to rank order those
options
but uh yeah it's going to take a lot
more talk a lot more work
and and a lot more calculations
and i'll just remind everybody of my
favorite explanation that is that we're
not running out of water
but we're running out of cheap water
mr chairman may i make a comment please
adrian whitmer deputy director for water
as part of this the next time that we
get together we're definitely going to
be going
over the um the discussion on the
numerous basin
and the reclaimed water and asr
evaluation and recommendations
and as we had mentioned previously there
is the additional water supply
development alternatives
um there's at least two that um that you
all can kind of talk about and from what
i'm hearing
um is that perhaps you would like to
talk a little bit
more about um
perhaps um when you're talking about
desalinization
we did put in two permits for the
extremely deep wells um into the aquifer
where it is into the very high tds
so would like us to take a look at um
at decentralization um
as one of the options we can certainly
do that because that'll be something
that shoemaker and associates can
actually then look at that and see
how it may affect the lower rio grande
and then any other suggestions that uh
that you all may have um there's always
the
um it sounds like you all would like to
take a
a closer look at maybe um
i guess a more extreme
water con conservation
but as part of that we can certainly
have them
take a look at that but i think as we
have discussed before
um at this point the way the water
system is designed
it it has been designed and constructed
for
fire protection and as the public is
getting better and better at conserving
um
our water use is still about the same
because water
quality issues arise where we're having
to flush
so you know there there's positives and
there's negatives but
um to actually look at additional
conservation that is something that we
can
that we can definitely take a look at
and that way it kind of uh
brings it down i think um
a little more for for perhaps a better
understanding
as moving forward and then another
potential
discussion would be the aquifer storage
and recovery is a type of
indirect reuse if you all are interested
we can also have them take a look at
something
that's a little bit more out of the box
which would be a direct reuse where
we're treating
the waste water into drinking water
standards and then putting it for
instance
into a tank and then delivering it
after excessive amount of testing
and as we're talking about this we are
we're talking about what are we going to
do moving forward
um instead of just like you know right
now we have to look at forward where
when we're talking with enemy d
eventually i think some of these issues
such as direct use is going to be a
little more open
perhaps as we move forward
that's also all right thank you
um mr chair
i have a question or two i don't have a
ability here to raise my hand for some
reason on my screen
that's all right this is commissioner
carmichael right
go ahead this commissioner hardy oh
okay go ahead i'm sorry i don't have a
symbol there for some reason i could
indicate
i had some questions about how well we
know the
uh area around the bottom of the current
main
bose on the messiah boson here on which
this
critical level is predicted i saw
in earlier graphs here in this
presentation that they allude to
papers by holly i'm familiar with some
one of the earlier papers by holly and
mainly he was basing that a lot on
outcroppings he observed do we have some
good confirming data
from drilling as for whether the where
the
exactly the bottom of this current uh
reservoir exists are we strictly going
on
just some outcropping data
this is william little uh probably the
best source of data
is a really a very large paper
by holly and uh
kennedy which does a very good job of
mapping out the
hydrogeologic framework of the
basin and
someone here at utilities probably has a
copy of that
and then i would enjoy reading that i
have 75 paper by holly and king i think
it is
okay well there's there's uh
uh there's something from the uh
21st century okay
and then i don't have it i haven't seen
it but
there was a a
subsequent paper which was uh
hydraulic modeling based on the
hydrogeologic framework that those two
established but they don't
but they don't have actual core samples
or drilling data
yes they do okay yeah i'd like to see
that that's available
okay uh adrian can you uh
can you lead the charge to find those
those documents
mr chairman commissioners yes sir i will
okay
i wish i wish i'd uh
just kept the one that i had my hands on
but someone else thought it was theirs
and spoiled that story
this is delilah we'll just we'll make
sure we get that information out to all
the board
members as a refresher okay uh
uh commissioner carmichael had a comment
i agree with all the
thoughts and comments that we've heard
at some point during the ongoing
discussions
there's two other areas i'd like to see
us
spend some time on i'm not quite sure
when the right time is but
one is that uh you know this is
this is not just a city of las cruces
issue for the next 40 or 50 years
this obviously includes
every thing going on in the lord rio
grande valley
especially the farming irrigation and so
forth
so at some point i i i don't know how
but
i'd like to hear a little bit more about
what's going on around the state
and with other groups and uh you know
or are there coalitions going on that uh
that i'm not aware of or whatever that's
one
one item the other item at some point
we need to talk about the options
regarding funding
um i know we accumulate some funds
for water rights or whatever through
um uh through our
our charges and so forth but um
sooner or later it's going to take lots
of money
to do almost anything that we've talked
about
uh down the road at some point whether
it be 10 years from now or whatever
sooner i feel like sooner that we can
start accumulating
those dollars uh the better so uh
thanks that's my input
okay commissioner sork
so commissioner carmichael um
i don't know several of us in this group
here have been
part of a statewide water
what do we call it um exercise
of our whole water supply in the state
uh carved out in regions and um
several of us were on committees
multiple committees
subcommittees for oh golly over a year i
know
to report to the interstate stream
commission and
at the time billy garrett
and i presented that report to the
interstate
stream commission i don't know what's
happened i don't remember
what year that was maybe adrian can
remember what year we
they took the reports but anyway i don't
know what's happened since but
it has been worked on that's what i
wanted to point out
there does a recently published
state water plan which also
incorporates or includes all of the
sub-basins statewide and
there are there are a lot of issues
surrounding that plan but it does exist
and there's also
a couple of organizations and i'm not
going to be able to name them
that are trying to look at
the basin-wide water needs
separate from the outcome of the suit
and so yeah people are thinking about it
they may not be thinking fast enough
or carefully enough but but the thought
has occurred to more than one person
yeah the idea will be when action starts
coming out of those
discussions thank you indeed
other comments
okay uh
that probably uh adrian that probably
ends the work session for today
okay thank you chair and thank you um
annie and john we really appreciate you
doing that and then
as we get some more reports completed
we'll come back to you
and meantime you all start thinking
about what else
uh at least um
other areas that you would like us to
take a look at i think some of you have
some really
great ideas we've given you some things
to think about
so that way uh amongst you all you can
make a discussion and that way
chairman little can let us know which
way to move forward on those
thank you all very much okay thank you
uh three things uh we're going to
adjourn the work session here in a bit
we will re-adjourn re
rejoin for uh the regular meeting
i make it about seven minutes till three
uh can we make it back in front of the
screen by three o'clock
okay i see people nodding their head
that's fine
let's let's do that and by the time we
get to
board general discussion during the
regular meeting
let's contemplate scheduling another
work session
okay and with that go ahead oh this is
alma sorry um i can't raise my hand
because i'm a co-host but
um for those of you that are
participating in the regular meeting
don't leave the meeting just you know
take a break
don't yeah okay we're using the same
link
for the regular meeting thank you
okay so the the
work session is adjourned don't turn off
your set
uh i'll start talking again at
three o'clock and
dr shoemaker and annie thank you very
much
we really appreciate getting this
information and
the the data that we got last night and
this morning
uh is going to take some some time
to uh to go through but we will do that
as well
well thank you very much for the
opportunity mr chairman we enjoy
being involved with las cruces and it's
always fun to
to see everybody thanks a lot
okay uh anything else before we adjourn
all right see you all at three o'clock