Saturday, February 24, 2007

City well still has some glitches

Councilors vote to hold off payment

Argen Duncan El Defensor Chieftain Reporter, aduncan@dchieftain.com

The city's new Evergreen Well came on line six months late, and city employees are trying to work out glitches with the new system.

City Utilities Director Jay Santillanes said Friday that the well has been operating since early February, but city employees are still working on the automated controls.

"But its minor stuff," he said.

Workers are running the well manually.

"The contractor's pretty much finished with everything," Santillanes said.

The problem with an apparent power surge in the controls may not be the concern of Samcon Inc., the contracting company that installed the operating system. Several other problems have already been corrected.

"I mean, that's just the fits and starts of a new project," Mayor Ravi Bhasker said Friday of the issues.

At Wednesday's noon City Council meeting in City Hall, the council voted to defer payment to Samcon Inc. until they finished the final paperwork and repairs.

Friday, Santillanes said the engineer would recommend payment at the next council meeting.

Samcon originally had until last August to finish with the well, but the city extended the deadline to last September. Because of the late finish, the city sought reparations.

At Wednesday's meeting, Stephen Williams, managing principal of city-hired Dennis Engineering Company, said the city settled for $20,000 during mediation. The contract allowed charges of $67,000 to $68,000 in damages.

Two-way radios on the well and the New Mexico Tech tank send a signal for the well to pump when the tank needs water.

The Evergreen Well can produce about 2,300 to 2,400 gallons of water a minute.

"So come this summer, we should have all the kinks worked out of it, and the city should have no problem with water," Williams said.

Santillanes said the School of Mines Well, suspected of causing brown water, remains connected to the water system only as an emergency backup.

The contaminated Olson Well is no longer part of the system.

City Clerk Pat Salome said sediment, which makes water brown, remains in the system. Bhasker said the brown water should be gone in six months to a year.

Bhasker also said the city has a deadline to remove arsenic from some parts of its system, which would cost $250,000 to $500,000.

While the Industrial Park well has an arsenic content slightly higher than federal Environmental Protection Agency limits allow, but Socorro Springs presents the main problem.

Arsenic in the springs is below the past maximum allowance of 50 parts per billion, but it is now above the new limit of 10 parts per billion.

Socorro Springs also puts more water into the system than the Evergreen Well.

Santillanes said compliance testing begins in July, and the city would fail if it missed the limit in four quarterly tests.

The city wouldn't have a violation issued for a year, he said.

Williams said his company would do an engineering cost report and get funding through it later.

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