$2M water project is state’s boondoggle

BLOOMFIELD, N.M. (KRQE) - If you want to see what a waste of nearly $2 million looks like, go no further than this city of 9,000 residents in New Mexico’s northwestern corner.

“I think it was a poor use of taxpayer’s money and a bad decision,” said Bloomfield City Manager David Fuqua. “Bottom line is, it doesn’t work like it should.”

The boondoggle of a public works project sits on the banks of the San Juan River and is known as the Second Source Reservoir and Pump Station. It was supposed to function as an emergency water supply for Bloomfield residents.

But two years after it was built, those residents still have no backup water system and, indeed, are in a worse position than they were before the project began, Fuqua said.

“We were told by the same engineers that built it (that) it would be $5 1/2 to $6 million to fix it,” Fuqua said.

The problem with Bloomfield’s water supply came to light 12 years ago. That’s when the city was brought to the brink of disaster by a rockslide that, for two weeks, choked off its water supply from Navajo Dam 18 miles away.

Community leaders immediately drew up plans for an emergency backup water system, then hired an engineering firm to design the project. Money for the project came from the state Legislature and the New Mexico Water Trust Board.

In the event of an emergency, water was supposed to be able to be pulled from the San Juan River, piped to the reservoir, then pumped to a nearby water treatment plant. But there’s just one problem that was apparently overlooked: mud.

The San Juan River contains lots of silt – especially after a heavy rainfall – and that mud renders the Second Source project useless.

“It would do a lot of damage in one day,” Fuqua said. “Just in the amount of silt that we would have to remove from that one day would be staggering.  Plus the damage it would do to the pipes, the propellers at the plant, the filters.

"It would be very costly to the citizens.”

In fact, before the project was even built, engineers warned that silt in the San Juan River water could be “very detrimental” to equipment, and that the abrasive mud would be a “significant concern,” according to a report done by the engineering firm that designed the project. In addition, engineers noted that the water quality at the site where the project was to be built was “poor.”

From the December 2002 Report:

"The San Juan River has several large arroyos discharging into the river flow. Most of the time these arroyos are dry and do not present any problems. However, on occasion, particularly in the late summer months when the area experiences high intensity short duration rain storms, these arroyos will run creating a situation in the river wherein silt loads are extreme.

"The silt, if not given due consideration in the design of facilities, can be very damaging to pumps, values, gates and other infrastructure elements subjected to the silty conditions of the water… Silt will be of significant concern in the design of this facility."  

---   City of Bloomfield, Preliminary Engineering Report For Alternative Raw Water Delivery System And Reservoir Expansion Project

After a heavy rain, large amounts of silt enter the river from the Largo Wash, located six miles upstream of the Second Source project.

“In a meeting we had, one of the engineers made the comment that, ‘This didn’t turn out like I thought it would,’” Fuqua said. “And that kind of surprised me.”

Now that the project is essentially worthless, no one associated with it will accept responsibility for the mistakes made during its design and construction.

That includes the engineering firm, Souder Miller and Associates, hired by Bloomfield to design the project. Project engineer Doug Mize declined to comment, while Souder Miller CEO Peter Fant did not return phone messages.

The New Mexico Engineer’s Office told News 13 they had no oversight responsibility on the project. The state’s Environment Department said all they did was issue permits.

The Water Trust Board said they weren’t even aware the project didn’t work until KRQE News 13 called looking for comment.

Fuqua took over as city manager after Second Source was built, and the city’s current administration blames the previous administration.

State Sen. Steve Neville, R-Aztec, sponsored a $500,000 appropriation to help fund the project. He said he thinks the problems should have been identified by city staffers, design engineers, the contractor and the Environment Department.

“So there’s at least four people, four entities along there, that should have picked up on this,” Neville said. “Now how the project got fully built and implemented in this current state, I can’t tell you. That’s a puzzle I haven’t unwound yet.”

Fuqua said the city of Bloomfield doesn’t have the money to fix the project. And until it does, the city now owns the most expensive swimming hole in the state.