Board member airs complaint about Portales Council water procedures

A Portales Water Advisory Board member is calling Monday’s City Council meeting “a procedural train wreck.”

Mike Davidson, who also serves on the city’s Public Works committee, said Council members did not follow their own drought contingency plan among other issues when they voted 4-3 to relax water restrictions, moving from the “Stage 3” plan to a scaled-back version of “Stage 2.”

“They wanted to move to Stage 2 yet not follow those restrictions (either),” he wrote in a letter to The News. “The mayor pro-tem, who opposed lifting the restriction, felt like she couldnʼt vote …”

Portales Council members last year voted to restrict most outdoor watering in the city due to wellfield limitations. Officials have repeatedly said the city’s wellfield produces about 2,300 gallons of water per minute – enough to sustain basic needs, but not more. Those numbers have not improved, despite the water restrictions.

While Council members noted the situation has not improved, a majority still voted to allow residents to water their lawns for 30 minutes per week. Veronica Cordova, who said during Monday’s meeting that “We need to have better solutions before we come off restrictions,” did not vote Monday because she was acting as mayor pro-tem. Portales’ mayor usually votes only in the event of a tie. Mayor Mike Miller did not attend the meeting because he was out of town with goodwill ambassadors promoting New Mexico.

Council member Eldon Merrick said a 4-4 vote would have forced councilors to table the issue until another vote could be taken with Miller to break the tie.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t bring it up again,” Merrick said.

Council member Rustin Self said he voted to allow limited lawn watering because “people are moving from Portales over the restrictions.

“Property values are dropping,” he said. “We need to get back the public trust.”

Davidson said the Council’s decision to relax restrictions was “a slap in the face to those of us that have been working hard (on the water committee), voluntarily, for funding and solutions to be totally bypassed.”

Davidson fears bypassing recommendations could prevent funding from grants.

“Fund providers’ first question is ‘What have you done for yourselves?’ When your answer is ‘We relaxed our conservation efforts … so we can have green grassʼ all we’re going to hear is ‘click’ and a dial tone after they hang up,” Davidson wrote.

Davidson is concerned about a report, brought up in Monday’s discussion, that Portales would run out of water by 2027.

“In a report by Geoffrey Rawling entitled ‘A Hydrogeologic Investigation of Curry and Roosevelt Counties, New Mexicoʼ, released in 2018, Portales and Clovis were warned that Portales would encounter problems and exhaust its resources in 10 years,” Davidson wrote.

Davidson noted that report aligns in outcome with two other reports.

“Our every action determines the year we ‘totallyʼ run out of water and the decision by Portales City Council only aggravated it,” Davidson wrote.

Miller said the water committee is working on a new drought plan “and we’ll see how that works out.”

He said he’s not sure how he might have voted Monday if he’d been at the Council meeting.

“I wasn’t there to hear what was said,” he told The News on Wednesday from Bentonville, Ark., where he continued to promote the state with the New Mexico Amigos.

The change the Council approved Monday means residents living at odd-numbered addresses may water their lawns for 30 minutes between 9 p.m. Mondays and 7 a.m. Tuesdays. Those living at even-numbered addresses may water their lawns for 30 minutes between 9 p.m. Thursdays and 7 a.m. Fridays, officials said.