City officials say certain water requests should go to county.
A forthcoming request for city water has caught the attention of several city councilors who want to know why the request is coming their way.
The Texico Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, a New Mexico and Texas association of Adventists, was scheduled to request
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water at the March 29 City Council meeting. The water would be used for the organization to build a church and school at 23 College Avenue in the southwestern sector of Santa Fe.
That address, however, is not actually in the city. It lies
in an unincorporated area of the county known as the Extraterritorial Zone (EZ), a five-mile radius outside the city that still relies on the city for some services.
The problem for at least one city councilor is his belief the
city shouldn't be providing water for customers, such as the
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Adventist school, in the EZ, even though it has largely approved such requests in the past.
"We are creating city customers that are not part of the city limits," says Councilor Miguel Chavez. Chavez has long been pushing for annexation of land in the EZ to create clearer boundaries between city and county.
Rather, Chavez says, entities that lie in the EZ (like the proposed school) should be getting their water from the county. This is because the city and county reached an agreement in January, 2005. Under that
agreement, the county now can purchase up to 875 acre-feet of city water per year. That number will be reduced to 500 acre-feet of water per year once the joint city/county Buckman Water Diversion Project is completed and the county gains an additional water supply.
Last year, according to Assistant City Attorney Kyle Harwood, the county bought 370 acre-feet of water from the city at a wholesale price of $3.50 per 1,000 gallons.
"We're allocating sufficient water over there," Chavez says. "So I think when we still get asked for water from people in the county, it's a contradiction with and in conflict with that agreement."
Chavez, who now chairs the city's Public Utilities Committee, will likely
play an increasingly important role in determining who in the EZ gets water and who doesn't. Applicants for city water must appear before the PUC before garnering final approval from the City Council. The request from the Adventist School was approved by the PUC on March 1, according to Harwood, who deals primarily with water issues. Last year the city provided approximately 61 acre-feet of water to applicants in the EZ-mainly to the Santo Niño, a regional Catholic school, and three senior citizen affordable housing projects.
"It's becoming very frustrating, as I understand it, because we continue to get new requests even though we agreed to supply the county with water," Harwood says.
As a result, Harwood is managing a "technical review team" that is in the process of reviewing water contracts between both city and county and examining requests for services.
County Commissioner Paul Campos takes umbrage with the implication that the county is pawning off its residents on the city for water. Campos sits on the Extraterritorial Zoning Authority, a joint city/county body that oversees the area.
He says the Extraterritorial Zoning Ordinance, the guiding legislation for the area, allows for developers to build denser projects if city water is used. Subsequently, many applicants prefer to go to the city than the county.
"We don't encourage applicants to go to the city for water," Campos says. "The city can still always say no."
The question of why such applicants continue to come forward to the city is perplexing to at least one new city councilor. Chris Calvert tells SFR he plans on requesting that the school item be postponed until he gets further clarification on "what the heck is going on."
"After reading the staff reports on the issues and then seeing the item there, I'm a little confused," Calvert says. "I'd like to get further analysis from staff."
Norman Zimmerman, a representative of the Texico Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, says he spoke with county officials about the project but ultimately requested water from the city because their site is part of the Rancho Viejo development.
Rancho Viejo, a large residential and commercial development south of Santa Fe, will likely be debated by the EZA as it seeks approval for its next phase of expansion.
Jon Paul Romero, land development manager for the development, says the site for the school and church was donated to the Texico Conference with the only stipulation that the group supply its own water.
"The property is directly across from the Institute of American Indian Arts, which uses city water, so that could be why they went to the city," Romero says.
Stephen Wust, director of the Santa Fe County Water Utility, says it is reasonable for the Texico Conference to hook up to a city water line if it is indeed closer.
Says Wust, "I can tell you that the County Commission does not direct
people to ask the city for water."
City Councilor Chavez, however, believes the water sales to the county should mitigate such requests.
"It's my understanding that when we negotiated the wholesale agreement that the county would have adequate water supply for county customers, including those in unincorporated parts of the county," he says.
