By Hannah Grover
The Town of Estancia is asking residents to conserve water because the well is not producing enough to meet demands.
Estancia posted a notice on social media and its website this week, alerting residents to the situation and asking them to conserve water. The Town Board of Trustees met with community members on Wednesday evening to discuss the problem.
The board chose not to issue a declaration of emergency on Wednesday, but could do so in the future. It will likely further discuss the situation during its meeting at 6:15 p.m. Monday.
Mayor Nathan Dial said the municipal water is still safe to drink and the aquifer has adequate supplies.
“Roughly a year ago, one of our primary wells started acting up and going out. So we’ve been basically living on one well for about nine months now,” Dial said.
This isn’t the first time water troubles have hit the town. Last summer, the town also asked residents to conserve water due to well challenges.
He said the remaining well needs to be refurbished. To do that, the town needs to build up the amount of water in its storage tanks so there is enough to meet demands while the work is being done. Dial told The Independent News that the town can spend between $30,000 and $120,000 to refurbish the well.
“The town has money in its coffers to pay for this, and because we don’t have to go to engineering, because it’s a repair, not a rebuild…we will pull the trigger as fast as we can,” he told residents.
That alone will not solve the water problem. The town also needs to replace the well that is no longer in operation.
According to Dial, the town has asked the state Water Trust Board for $5 million in funding — $2.5 million to drill a new well and another $2.5 million to upgrade its system. He said the Water Trust Board has approved the money if the town provides the required documents to the board by July. One of the required documents is the town’s audit report, which Dial admitted is bad.
Torrance County Commission Chairman Ryan Schwebach said the county is prepared to step up and become a fiscal agent for the project, which should help with any concerns the state might have with the audit.
Dial said drilling the new well will likely not start until next spring.
CoreCivic, which operates the Torrance County Detention Center, is the largest single customer in Estancia and accounts for about 20% of the water usage. It has agreed to haul water, but first a check valve must be installed on the detention center’s tanks to ensure the water CoreCivic hauls in stays at the detention center. In the meantime, water to the detention center is being turned off overnight.
Dial told residents that the town will need to turn off water to all customers overnight at a future date that has not yet been determined. That will allow Estancia to fill its tanks prior to going in and refurbishing the well.
The water challenges will likely delay or impact development, including a proposed RV park that would have 75 hookups. Dial said the town has received an application for the RV park but has not approved it at this time and will likely not approve it until the water situation has been resolved.
While the pond in Arthur Park is filled using water from a separate well, Dial said he has requested that the pond not be filled due to appearances. The town’s fire department is hauling in water from Willard that it uses to water the baseball fields.
Efforts that the town has taken this week have already helped the situation. The town officials were monitoring the levels in the tanks during Wednesday evening’s meeting and noted that the levels had gone up, but they said conservation is still needed.
“What we’re doing is working, but it doesn’t fix our problem,” Dial said. “The town’s been doing bandage, bandage, bandage. Now, with your help, we’re just got a bigger Band-Aid.”