I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Photo by Esther Gibbons.
Bernalillo has been operating its troubled drinking water treatment facilities in violation of state law since 2008, according to Environment Department officials.
“We have no record of fully approving the project,” spokeswoman Marissa Stone Bardino said in response to public records requests from The Independent. “They needed approval.”
That provoked a heated response from former Town project engineer Ramesh Narasimhan, who referred The Independent to public relations representative Joanie Griffin for comment.
“There was no approval to operate requested nor required,” Griffin told The Independent by e-mail. “(The Environment Department), based on e-mails, meetings, actions and phone conversations implicitly approved the project.”
But state regulations require public water systems to inform the Environment Department in writing when work on a public water system project “is at or near completion” and states the new or modified facility “shall not be used to produce, store, distribute or treat potable water for public consumption until the Department has been notified in writing.”
Regulations also require the submission of specific documents to the Environment Department prior to use of a new treatment system, in order to give the state time to review projects and detect problems before new facilities are used.
Neither the Town of Bernalillo nor Narasimhan has yet submitted the required written notification and final submissions, Drinking Water Bureau Compliance Manager Mike Huber said.
“We didn’t receive any of that from the water system or their engineer (Narasimhan),” Huber said Wednesday. “No ‘as-built’ plans were submitted to us. There is no indication we got … the certificate of completion, the written statement that the project was accomplished, or (that water) quality data were appropriate.”
Narasimhan acknowledged Wednesday that as-built plans were never submitted. He did not comment on the other records listed by Huber.
Narasimhan was never asked for these records, Griffin said.
But that doesn’t matter, according to Huber.
“It’s in our regulations, and every engineer is responsible for following regulations for his clients,” Huber told The Independent. “It’s right there in black and white.”
Town Planning Director Maria Rinaldi had sought for more than a year to obtain water quality data from Narasimhan, without success, she has told The Independent.
At a Feb. 17 meeting between Environment Department and Town officials, Narasimhan was asked to provide the malfunctioning water system’s final “plans and specs,” but, Huber said Wednesday, Narasimhan did not do so.
Narasimhan was fired Feb. 23 by former mayor Patricia Chavez after the treatment facilities’ failure to consistently reduce arsenic in the Town’s drinking water — and the facilities’ leaking of aluminum sludge into tap water — became election issues.
Chavez subsequently lost her reelection bid last month to rival Jack Torres, who ran on a clean water platform.
In late 2009 and earlier this year, the Environment Department approved the construction of two additional arsenic treatment facilities at the Town’s currently inactive wells. However, Torres halted that $9.2 million project earlier this month, citing trouble with the existing facilities.
“Town administrative staff and Council made the decision to proceed based on information presented to the Council by the lead engineer, indicating he had gained the NMED approvals necessary,” Torres said Tuesday afternoon. “Questions regarding the approvals should be clarified by Mr. Narasimhan.”
No legal action planned
The state has no plans to pursue formal enforcement against the Town of Bernalillo or Narasimhan, Bardino said.
“We are working with the Town to correct issues from the past,” Bardino said.
Town officials and the Town’s new project engineering firm, Wilson & Company, have been working diligently on solving the water system’s problems, Huber said.
“I also agree with the statement that the system wasn’t operating to any expectations and that the issues needed to be corrected,”
Narasimhan said.
State paper trail has misleading gaps
At first glance, gaps in the Environment Department’s paperwork seem to suggest Narasimhan also failed to secure the state’s approval to build the arsenic treatment facilities in the first place — but that was not actually the case.
No written approvals of the facilities’ construction plans could be found in Environment Department or Town files because Drinking Water Bureau engineer Damian Luna had given only verbal permission to begin construction during a 2007 phone call with Narasimhan, Department officials confirmed.
Luna did not return a phone call for comment.
The Environment Department’s paper trail misleadingly ends with an August 2007 denial letter in which Luna notified the Town that construction was “NOT APPROVED” because Narasimhan’s plans failed to specify how treated water would be tested for contaminants.
But the existence of Luna’s 2007 denial letter is evidence that another document — an application for approval to modify a public water system — is also missing from Environment Department files, Huber acknowledged.
“They did submit an application,” Huber said Wednesday. “They did that step, or we wouldn’t see the denial letter from Damian (Luna). It had to be submitted.”
