Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Water authority approves $37.188 million grant

CLOVIS — The Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority is heading south, following an eight-figure grant agreement Monday with the Bureau of Reclamation.

The authority board voted 4-0 in a 20-minute special meeting at the authority offices to approve a $37.188 million grant from the BOR, with much of the money dedicated to its Finished Water 3 project.

The authority is tasked to complete the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System, which will eventually connect entities in Curry and Roosevelt counties to the Ute Reservoir in Quay County.

Currently, authority work is focused on an interim groundwater system encompassing 39 miles of the overall project’s 150 miles of planned transmission pipeline. The interim system is expected to provide municipal water purchased from local landowners until the eventual connection is made to the reservoir.

Finished Water 3, Authority Administrator Orlando Ortega said, includes 16.8 miles of 20-inch PVC and ductile iron pipe that will connect the system between Cannon Air Force Base and the Lime Street water facility in Portales.

Finished Water 2, which is mostly done with the exception of seeding on some of the easements, includes 7.6 miles of water pipeline connecting the city of Clovis and Cannon Air Force Base.

The total grant of $37,188,242 includes $27,891,181 from the BOR and $9,297,061 from non-federal sources — roughly $5.578 million from the state and $3.719 million from the authority.

A total of $14.75 million from the BOR share will be combined with the non-federal dollars for more than $24 million that will go toward the first phase of Finished Water 3. Ortega is optimistic plenty of work can get done for that $24 million, “but you don’t know until you get the bids.”

According to a timeline provided in the grant agreement, the authority anticipates beginning construction in May and completing the project in March 2024.

John Irizarry, a project manager for the BOR, joined the meeting by telephone and said the grant agreement has similar boilerplate language to other agreements the authority has had in the last decade.

The remaining $13.891 million in BOR money would be conveyed in future agreements, subject to the availability of appropriations from Congress.

Ortega said the plan is to tackle the work in two phases, but noted it may be a three-phase project when all is said and done.

“We’re excited to get onto that south pipeline,” Portales Mayor and Authority Vice Chair Ron Jackson said when asked for brief remarks from Chair David Lansford.

Joining Lansford and Jackson in the vote were Clovis Mayor Pro Tem Chris Bryant and Portales City Councilor Jim Lucero.

The authority’s next meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday at the authority office, located at the Sitterly Professional Center.

 
 
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