BDD News
Opinion
Clarifying the Role of the Buckman Direct Diversion Project In Our Water Supply Future
For release – March 13, 2008
By Rebecca Wurzburger, Chair
Buckman Direct Diversion Board
Santa Fe City Councilor, District 2
Recently, the Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD) Board signed a $180.9 million contract for design and construction of the project with the Design Build (DB) team of CH2M Hill and Western Summit Joint Venture. This is an important step forward, but I wanted to take a moment to clarify several key points that relate to the BDD and to the contract.
Putting this contract in place is a milestone for the BDD, which is jointly owned by the City of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County. Obtaining the necessary approvals to locate the project on federal land and address environmental and fish and wildlife concerns has taken the last six years. The bid process for a Design Build contractor has taken the last 18 months. Throughout, the City and County have worked together, and the members of our Board have been committed to an unparalleled level of cooperation and have focused on our common goals.
While we have not established a date for groundbreaking, the DB contractor is now contractually committed to have the project operational by March 2011. The BDD Design Build contract is indeed more than we originally anticipated, due to the requirement for a very robust, state-of-the-art water treatment process.
The BDD is a foundation for an overall long-range water plan based on sustainable use of both surface water and groundwater resources. Sustainable and reliable municipal water supply in New Mexico generally requires use of both groundwater and surface water. The BDD is not intended to replace our use of groundwater, or the much more limited Santa Fe River water supply from the canyon reservoirs, but to supplement them, provide for a more reliable supply during times of Santa Fe River drought, and allow our underground aquifer to rest and recharge (refill) over time.
The City of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County will share construction costs for all aspects of the project. The City plans to fund its share with City funds backed by City gross receipt taxes and water revenue bonds. The County plans to fund its share through general obligation bonds and gross receipts tax revenue bonds. Our limited partner, Las Campanas, will fund a proportional amount of costs for shared facilities on a cash basis, but will build its own water treatment plant for its residents.
We are continuing to seek state and federal grants and low interest loans from all available sources. To date, we’ve received grants totaling $6.4 million from a variety of state and federal agencies. We have also received a $7 million low-interest loan from the New Mexico Finance Authority, with an additional $8 million in low-interest loan funds available now that the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement and federal Record of Decision have been completed.
Concerns have been raised about whether the BDD will be able to sufficiently treat the water diverted from the Rio Grande to remove all possible contamination, including radionuclide contamination. An independent study by a UNM professor and water treatment expert concludes that the City/County water treatment plant will provide the best available technology to remove the contaminants of concern. Perhaps as importantly, decades of water quality data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, the New Mexico Environment Department and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are consistent. These data show the river usually contains much lower levels of the LANL contaminants of concern than are allowed in finished drinking water by state and federal regulations, except when the river contains very large amounts of sediment. We plan to temporarily suspend BDD diversions under those conditions. However, we are continuing to study this issue and will report back to the public. We are confident that, when completed, the BDD will produce high-quality drinking water that meets all current state and federal water quality standards. In fact, the BDD will meet standards that are 100 times more stringent than the current standards for plutonium and other contaminants of concern due to our proximity to LANL.
The BDD is a vital part of our water future, but it is only one part of a comprehensive, long-range plan to insure we have a reliable, sustainable source of drinking water for our generation – and for future generations. We must all continue to conserve water, and we must continue looking for ways to use our limited water resources more efficiently and effectively.