Water deal saves $17M

By Chris Roberts \ El Paso Times

EL PASO -- The city will save more than $17 million during the next decade thanks to a new agreement with the district that provides about half of El Paso's drinking water.

"Financially, it is significant," said Nick Costanzo, Public Service Board vice president of business and finance. "Based on the contract that was in place, the price would have more than doubled in 10 years. ... It certainly takes some of the pressure off for future rate increases."

The El Paso County Water Improvement District agreed to freeze the price of some water it provides for two years and then tie annual increases to the consumer price index with a cap of 4 percent. The previous agreement, part of a 40-year contract that is renegotiated every 10 years, called for 8 percent annual increases.

Water obtained under the "2001 contract" now costs $260 per acre foot. An acre-foot can supply the household needs of two four-person families for one year. Under the new agreement, the city will pay about $65.8 million to the district during the next 10 years.

The contract covers about 18,000 acre feet of the total 61,000 acre feet supplied by the district. Water in that contract is the most expensive. Other contracts going back to the 1940s set lower prices.

people are paying in California."

The higher price is part of doing business in arid locations, Costanzo said, where water is harder to find. He said the city's price is among the lowest in the Southwest.

It took nearly 30 years of haggling among the Elephant Butte Irrigation District in New Mexico, the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the county water district to reach agreement on how Rio Grande water would be allocated. The city is a district member because it has water rights for about 3,200 acres it owns.

"The Elephant Butte Irrigation District is happy, we're happy and the Bureau of Reclamation is happy," said Jesus "Chuy" Reyes, who manages the water district.

It was not always so.

"We were fighting New Mexico. We were fighting the irrigation district. We were fighting the colonia development," Archuleta said. "We tore down those adobe walls, if you will."

Reyes was less poetic. Archuleta "and I worked it out at lunch," he said.

The agreement became final at the end of March.

River water, flowing mostly from snowmelt in the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, is vital to El Paso's long-term survival. It is considered a renewable resource.

The city wants to use as much river water as it can to conserve what is available in the Hueco Bolson, a vast aquifer that runs parallel to the Franklin Mountains on the city's East Side. A small portion of it is relatively easy to treat. The larger portion is brackish and will require relatively costly treatment at the city's desalination plant.

"A child born today is probably going to live 100 years," Costanzo said. "We want to have 75 percent of the Hueco potable water available 100 years from now."

As El Paso grows during the next 10 years, the city will increase output from the desalination plant, Costanzo said. "It's also an insurance policy for when there is a river drought," he added.

During a river drought, all members take an equal hit, Reyes said. In the drought of 2003 and 2004, members received half of their allotments, he said.

Those members have about 32,000 water accounts that include small tracts and large farms. The district's 100 employees are responsible for operating and maintaining about 350 miles of irrigation canals that stretch from the New Mexico state line to Hudspeth County, Reyes said.

"Mostly it's going to pecan orchards," he said. "There is a lot of cotton still in the valley. We don't have as many vegetables."

It was agriculture that prompted the federal government, looking for ways to speed development of the West, to begin water projects in the late 1800s. Flood control and farming were the goals, which is why the district controls the water.

"Recreation and municipal use were not part of the equation," Archuleta said.

The Elephant Butte and Caballo dams were built in the early 1900s, he said. It wasn't until the early 1940s that the city began staking its claims. For decades, El Paso relied mostly on groundwater, Archuleta said.

Now the city waits for stream flow predictions based on snowpack. There is good news this year.

The region will receive its full allotment, Reyes said.