GENERAL MANAGERS REPORT FOR DECEMBER 2005

 

In the November Board of Directors meeting, I was asked why we had not used the 
bentonite we have to seal the fishing lakes behind the lodge. I was only able to 
give a partial answer, however, I feel that it is important for the community to 
know the complete answer. I said that we hadn’t had time to do that because of 
more important projects. That is true, but It is fortunate that we didn’t have 
the time, because since the time the Bentonite was purchased, things have 
changed. As everyone is aware, the drought caused the spring flow to diminish 
significantly, forcing us to turn to wells to provide our drinking water. Wells 
provide good drinking water, but they are far more costly in producing water 
than is the spring. We plan to use the spring water for drinking water as soon 
as the spring flow returns sufficiently, but during the last three years, while 
the spring flow has been down, the New Mexico Environment Department has lowered 
the limits for allowable turbidity in drinking water. The limit used to be 5 
ntu’s  but now it is 0.3 ntu’s. While turbidity in our spring water will fall 
below the 5 ntu requirement, it will not come close to the 0.3 ntu requirement, 
even after passing through our filtration plant. Therefore, we are faced with 
the necessity of making significant modifications to our treatment plant, or 
finding an alternate method of reducing the turbidity of the spring water. 
During the last summer, we have seen the spring flows return to more than 250 
gallons per minute. This has helped considerably in our irrigation needs, but we 
cannot use it for drinking water. If, however, we deepen the upper lake, seal 
it, and make it into a drinking water reservoir, the turbidity from the spring 
will settle out before we send the water to the plant. This would save us from 
having to modify the treatment plant. Building a drinking water reservoir is 
expensive, but it solves the turbidity problem while providing an additional 5 
days of backup water for the community.

 

We are working with the engineers to design additional storage and installation 
of pressure reduction valves. They were here on Friday, December 16, to discuss 
the initial design phases of the project.

 

We have painted handicap parking spaces in the parking lot in compliance with 
the Americans with Disabilities Act. We will be placing Additional striping for 
the rest of the parking lot in the near future.

 

We are also in the process of installing yield signs on selected streets. The 
next one to be installed will be Merlin.

 

We have received an annual report from BEH Drug Screening Co. The report states 
that during the past year 16 employees were tested for illegal drug and alcohol 
usage and no one tested positive. In addition, we did pre-employment testing on 
new hires.

 

 

 

Billy R. Gideon

General Manager