BDD News
Opinion
Water Quality is THE Focus for the Buckman Direct Diversion Project
To the Editor:
The Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD) Board thanks all community members who provided valuable input at the recent Town Hall regarding water quality issues on August 26, 2008. The BDD Board is dedicated to ensuring customer confidence and welcomes the opportunity to exchange ideas and information regarding this much needed public project. We are pumping too much water from regional groundwater wells. This is not sustainable and the pumping is also damaging the underground aquifer. The Santa Fe River reservoirs can only supply about half of the region’s needs in the best of years. The BDD Project will bring a new source of surface water to balance the local water resources in order to provide reliable, high-quality water to the Santa Fe region.
Water quality of the Rio Grande River has been THE focus of the design process. Water quality is at the heart of the design of every water treatment plant that takes surface water and produces drinking water that meets all federal and state standards and regulatory requirements.
The planning process, which began in 2002, has involved multiple partners, multiple government agencies and a great deal of thought and study. There have been numerous studies and research involving alternative water diversion locations, environmental impacts, biological assessments, water treatment techniques and water quality. The public has had the opportunity to review and comment on this information throughout the process.
The six-year process for preparation of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and the Record of Decision (ROD) by two federal agencies examined the issue of potential contamination from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). A host of other state and federal agencies were involved. The EIS evaluation considered historic data and other evaluations of contaminants in the Rio Grande River, risk analyses after the Cerro Grande fire, and recent studies of the LANL contamination issue by New Mexico Environment Department’s Department of Energy Oversight Bureau. Two appeals were made to the U.S. Forest Service Regional Office and to the U.S. Department of Interior. In both instances, the appeals were denied, and the Record of Decision and the Final Environmental Impact Statement were upheld.
Santa Fe water will be safe and will have multi-barrier protection using a robust and state-of-the-art water treatment process that will use the best available technology for removing organics, PPCPs and other contaminants.
We encourage and welcome continued dialogue and would like to invite the public to our ground-breaking on September 10th at the new water treatment plant. To review more detailed information on the project, including studies, permits, research, appeals, costs and how the BDD will be designed and built, as well as directions and times for the groundbreaking, please go to www.bddproject.org or contact Rick Carpenter, BDD Project Manager at 505-955-4206 or rrcarpenter@ci.santa-fe.nm.
The most important piece of information that we can offer the communities the BDD will serve is this - we have to provide safe drinking water, or we won't deliver the water.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Wurzburger, Chair, BDD Board
Santa Fe City Councilor, District 2; Mayor Pro Tem