Council approves plan to gain access to more Storrie Lake water

Las Vegas has received a commitment from the federal government to receive upwards of $140 million to fund a brand new, state of the art, water treatment facility to replace the existing infrastructure, but that project is still 5 to 7 years away from completion, in a best case scenario. For now, finding temporary solutions is the city’s best bet, even if they come with a fair bit of risk, and a high price tag, according to the council.

At a special meeting last week the Las Vegas City Council - reluctantly, in some cases - voted to approve a contract that will provide The Meadow City with nearly 1,000 more acre feet of water in Storrie Lake over the next two years, potentially helping to alleviate some of the water shortage concerns caused by last year’s Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire.

The additional water comes from an agreement made with Storrie Lake shareholder Michael Quintana, who will surrender his entire personal allotment of Storrie Lake water over the next two years to the city, and will receive $1 million per year in exchange for the right to the water.

Where exactly that money will come from is still a source of contention among the governing body. The city expects this money to come from the State of New Mexico, though no checks have been cut to them yet for this payment, and no real commitment has yet been made for the cost to be covered throughout the length of this contract.

Councilor Barbara Casey, prior to agreeing to approve the contract said, “I’m not particularly happy with the way things have worked out, I’m very concerned about future monies, and I don’t quite trust state government to provide the money that has been promised because it has already been changed several times.”

However, she said she felt like the city had to do something to ensure it would never be back in the situation they faced a year ago, when flooding and wildfire debris caused an extreme shortage and led to the city being forced to hand out water to residents to conserve a dwindling supply.

“Under the circumstances we need to do something,” Casey said. “It’s for two years, and hopefully by then we will have a system that we can work with.”

“For so long we have been in difficult situations and we might be criticized and chastised over the cost of this, but I want to recall the situation we were in last year, when we had individuals worried about water, and we were handing out water,” Councilor David Romero said.

He added that constituents warned the city for years that the potential for water issues was present, and the city was not proactive in its response. He said he felt like this was a chance for the city to be proactive before disaster strikes again, and it was a risk he was willing to take.

The biggest critic of the deal on the council was Michael Montoya, the sole vote to deny the contract when the vote was taken at the end of the meeting.

“It’s a gamble that we shouldn’t take,” Montoya said. “I say we are making a decision for the current situation at hand and not considering the future.”

He said the city has never come close to using the 800 acre feet of water it is already allotted at Storrie Lake, and that he doesn’t think the city will ever touch the new water it is acquiring. He said the high cost was not worth it for a temporary measure, especially when the contract does not guarantee the quality of the water the city will be receiving, or even a guarantee on how much water will be available in the lake. He also added that the temporary water filtration system set up at Storrie Lake may only be installed until October or November of this year, and drawing water out of the lake could be more challenging after that.

“I don’t want to be in the same dilemma for the next two years,” Montoya said.

Much of the discussion regarding the contract occurred behind closed doors in executive session, but when the council returned it approved the contract 3-1, with Romero and Casey providing their reluctant reasons for approving it, and Montoya explaining his vote to deny the contract.

The next steps are still up in the air at this time, as the city waits to see if the state government will follow through on its promise to fund the $1 million per year agreement or if that funding will have to come from another source.

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