Clovis water assurance plan approved

CLOVIS — After nearly an hour of discussion, and plenty of assurances that a plan is more a guide than a mandate, the Clovis city commission unanimously approved a master water assurance plan nearly a year in the making.

The water plan's four core recommendations are to seek funding for statewide data collection and aquifer mapping, support policies to promote water reuse, provide resources for watershed management and playa lake conservation and create an initiative that would pay agricultural producers to reduce irrigation in favor of municipal water use.

In short, City Commissioner Ladona Clayton said, the plan was "comprehensive conservation." Clayton led a planning team that started last December creating the plan to help secure sustainable water for the city over the next 40 years.

The draft includes five action plans — effluent water reuse, water banking, playa lake restoration, conservation land and water trust and the Ute Water Project. The final plan is the long-discussed plan to pump water from the Ute Reservoir in Quay County to Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority members, with Clovis funding about three-quarters of the authority.

Commissioner Fidel Madrid said it was a good plan, and his objections weren't large enough to make him consider voting against the plan. But he had concerns about the action plan that dealt with the city's effluent reuse pipeline. The plan refers to target dates to finish off remaining phases, but no references to covering the remaining $11 million in work.

"Where" Madrid asked, "is the money coming from?"

Clayton and Commissioner Chris Bryant both noted having the plan in place would possibly open the city up to more funding possibilities.

" I don't disagree it looks somewhat overwhelming," Clayton said, "but don't look at the whole elephant. You have to do it in bite-size pieces. We are a people that inherently come up with solutions."

Commissioners were adamant the plan was a guide, and any benchmarks listed were goals instead of mandates.

Commissioner Sandra Taylor-Sawyer first expressed doubt she could vote on the plan Thursday night, noting she was looking at a plan that had been edited that same afternoon. Lansford said many of the changes were eliminating bureaucratic layers, and plan changes could be made after the approval as well.

"We approve resolutions," Lansford said. "They're not binding, they are just stating intent. ... An ordinance is binding. And that's not what we're doing here.

Lansford said he remembered the four years he stepped away from the mayor's position, and he watched local representatives work hard on the Ute Water Project only to see federal allocations that covered tiny portions of the project's overall cost. That time showed him that interim — and possibly alternative — solutions have to be found. Cities that have sustainable water and plans to keep it that way, he said, draw more community investors.

"I don't think it's going to make any changes in my life," Lansford said. "But it's going to improve the quality of life for future citizens of eastern New Mexico."

Commissioner Tom Martin relayed one of his favorite quotes about a plan from Mike Tyson that, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." He said the quote was important because it showed action requires risk, and also that the city needs to be ready when it does get figuratively punched in the mouth on water choices.

Members of the planning team Clayton led include EPCOR New Mexico Vice President and General Manager Daniel Bailet, Eastern Plains Council of Governments Executive Director Sandy Chancey, Curry County Commissioner Robert Thornton, EPCOR New Mexico Operations Supervisor Mark Huerta, former City Managers Tom Phelps and Larry Fry, Gene Hendrick of the Clovis Industrial Development Corporation and citizen representative Blake Prather.