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Photo by Esther Gibbons.
Bernalillo engineers want to rip out aluminum-based water treatment equipment and filters at the town’s troubled drinking water facilities and replace them with traditional iron treatment systems, Wilson and Company project engineer Bob Paulette told The Independent.
The town spent an estimated $5.1 million building and attempting to fix the ill-fated existing systems, and cannot afford a town fire chief, police chief, treasurer or town manager, thanks in part to that expense.
But town officials have not yet decided whether or not to attempt to recoup any of that money from former town manager Stephen Jerge, fired project engineer Ramesh Narasimhan‘s firm NCS or ARS-USA, the Bernalillo company that produced the aluminum treatment equipment Jerge and Narasimhan arranged for the town to acquire in a no-bid purchase agreement.
The system ‘simply wasn’t working’
The malfunctioning system, which was never formally approved by the state, failed to bring arsenic levels down to state and federal requirements for drinking water, and dumped aluminum sludge into residents’ tap water.
Narasimhan spent the better part of two years trying to re-engineer the system before being fired in March, when Wilson & Co. was hired to implement a corrective action plan ordered by the state Drinking Water Bureau.
Bernalillo engineers will redesign components of the facilities put in place by Narasimhan, Paulette said.
But it is unclear whether the systems’ failure was due to ARS equipment or Narasimhan’s engineering of downstream filters and backwash systems, Town Planning Director Maria Rinaldi said last week.
“Who knows? The system, as designed and operated, simply wasn’t working,” Rinaldi said. “ARS contends it was the filter system and at different times Ramesh (Narasimhan) said it was the filters, but in the end he said it was ARS equipment. We’ve gone back to the original recommendation made in the original (2006) engineering report by the town’s original engineers.”
The filter media at one well had been changed by Narasimhan at the request of ARS to try to help their system perform better, according to Narasimhan’s spokeswoman Joanie Griffin. The filter at the other facility was never changed, indicating the filter was not the problem, she said in an e-mail.
“NCS offered both to Mayor Patricia Chavez and then to Mayor Jack Torres to implement the Corrective Action Plan at no cost to the taxpayers in Bernalillo,” Griffin said in an email. “Instead, the Town chose to pay another engineering firm to implement the exact remedy NCS offered to implement for free.”
Tijeras water system still plans to use system
Another New Mexico water system, the Green Ridge water association in Tijeras, is moving ahead with plans to design and install an ARS “or ARS-like” system to deal with their water’s elevated fluoride and arsenic levels, according to Souder, Miller & Associates project engineer Andrew Robertson. ARS will have to bid for the job once the design has been approved by the state Drinking Water Bureau, and will only be paid for the system if it works for 90 days following completion, Robertson was quick to add.
Operating costs hotly disputed
An iron-based treatment system would cost less than $1,000 a month, mostly for iron chloride purchases, Paulette said.
Running the ARS system, in contrast, cost the town between $3,000 and $8,200 a month in electrical bills alone, Town Planning Director Maria Rinaldi said Wednesday, climbing as Narasimhan increased amperage on the ARS equipment in an effort to control arsenic levels in the water.
But ARS engineer Eric Vogler strenuously rejected that assessment.
“The maximum ARS electrical cost possible for the Bernalillo arsenic treatment facility at Well 4 is $2,246.40 per month,” Vogler wrote in an e-mail early Friday morning.
“This is based on an electrical cost of $0.10 per kilowatt hour, with the ARS reactors running at maximum possible voltage and amperage (20 V and 130 amps, respectively), 24 hours per day, for 30 days,” he wrote. “However, the ARS system is not intended to be run at this maximum possible treatment setting. In addition to the ARS system, there are several other electrical demands in the treatment plant such as the submersible pumps and the well pump that use a considerable amount of electricity.”
The Independent has asked to see the town’s operational expense documents.
Bernalillo Mayor Jack Torres scrapped a $9 million project earlier this year that would have installed ARS equipment at the town’s two other, currently unused wells.
Lab tests commissioned by Wilson & Co at one of the town’s two active wells, show that iron treatments “predictably and consistently” reduced arsenic levels in drinking water during recent months of testing, even when the aluminum treatment equipment was turned off, Paulette said.
“…It should be noted that when the plant was first constructed to use the ARS system it consistently reduced arsenic to below 10 parts per billion for the first 3 months of operation until ARS personnel were no longer allowed access,” ARS engineer Eric Vogler wrote in an e-mail.
“If ARS was allowed the opportunity to correct the problems at the Towns arsenic treatment facilities, the same result would have been accomplished and the original investment would have been salvaged,” Vogler wrote. “Moreover, ARS offered the Town a generous offer to fix the treatment plants but were declined.”
Due to locked gates, ARS personnel was unable to access the facilities for maintenance of their equipment on several occasions, town officials have previously confirmed.
No new construction before winter
The town will not apply to the state to build the new iron treatment facilities until Wilson & Co has replicated its success at the town’s other active well, Rinaldi said. The project will cost the town roughly another $200,000, Paulette estimated.
Bernalillo was the first water system in the nation to utilize aluminum electroflocculation equipment produced by local firm ARS-USA. Jerge, who resigned as town manager last April in the midst of a financial scandal, and Narasimhan, who was fired by the town earlier this year, had arranged the town’s no-bid purchase of the ARS equipment over the objections of the town’s engineering firm of record, HDR.
The Green Ridge system in Tijeras will be the second system to utilize ARS equipment.
Replacing the Bernalillo system will not occur before winter, Paulette said.
“The reality is, we cannot do it now in middle of summer when demand is so high for lawn water,” Paulette said.
Arsenic sludge from the defunct system remains in some of Bernalillo’s water distribution lines, Paulette and Rinaldi said, and will be flushed out int he coming weeks by opening fire hydrants.
