El Paso Water Utilities Begins Work on Water-Import Project
Operations are underway on state land northeast of Fort Hancock, in the first phase of an El Paso Water Utilities project that could export 10,000 to 20,000 acre-feet of water a year to the city from Hudspeth County.
El Paso leased land from the Texas General Land Office in 2014 – near the Diablo #1 dam about 15 miles north of McNary. In December, the El Paso city council and the Public Service Board, which oversees EPWU, allocated $5.2 million to launch a project to import water from the site.
El Paso has relied on the Rio Grande for about 60 percent of its water needs. But with historic drought conditions on the river, the amount of water the city has been able to obtain from the Rio Grande fell from 60,000 acre-feet in 2008 to about 10,000 acre-feet in 2013. The drought conditions have brought urgency to the city’s search for alternate sources of water.
The $5.2 million was allocated specifically to develop an exploratory well on the Diablo Plateau land, and in December, EPWU CEO John Balliew said the utility would drill an exploratory well in early 2015. At a meeting of Hudspeth County commissioners Tuesday (Feb. 24), a landowner adjacent to the Diablo site said equipment had been moved into the area and that drilling might be underway.
Hudspeth County Judge Mike Doyal expressed concern about how the water-exportation project might impact water users in the county, including livestock producers with wells adjacent to the GLO land. He said he would like to see some benefit come to the county and its residents from the water-export project.
“We don’t have the money to fight them,” Doyal said, “but maybe we can skim something for the county off on the side.”
Doyal was scheduled to meet with a GLO representative Tuesday afternoon, and he said he would ask how the project might be structured to benefit Hudspeth County. The GLO property does not lie within a groundwater district, so no local body exists that could limit pumping by EPWU.
If its exploratory well proves out, the city will have to find a way to transport water from the well site . Stanley Jobe operates wells not far from the EPWU lease, and transports water via pipeline from the wells for his Esperanza Water System, near Fort Hancock. EPWU might seek to use that pipeline or construct a pipeline along the same rights-of-way. New pipeline would have to be built to transport water from Fort Hancock to El Paso.
At the commissioners meeting, County Clerk Virginia Doyal said that people – apparently connected with the EPWU project – had been in her office, researching easements for a potential water pipeline.
carlos runningwolf mendoza
we are a tribal nation hubzone approved in hudspeth county on 80 acres triballands
we do have tribal underground water rights here..
” we will not give approval for any pipeline on tribal lands: ”
a tribal meeting is set for june 2015 re; this matter in new mexico
runningwolf …here