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SUNLAND PARK — The beleaguered Camino Real Regional Utility Authority’s governing board elected new officers and seated Alberto Jaramillo, a returning member of the seven-member body at a special meeting Monday night, while acknowledging that the board as presently constituted was about to change.
The following morning, Doña Ana County commissioners would consider an amended joint powers agreement between the county and the city of Sunland Park with respect to CRRUA, which provides water service for Sunland Park and Santa Teresa as well as its waste water system. The proposed changes included provisions about who sits on the board, increasing representation by elected officials.
Meanwhile, Las Cruces attorney Israel Chávez and three colleagues called a press conference outside the utility’s headquarters during the meeting to announce the beginning of litigation against the company, Sunland Park and Doña Ana County.
The attorneys issued a tort notice, a precursor to a potential lawsuit, as well as a civil rights claim over the company’s failure to promptly warn customers about elevated pH levels in water that 1,000 households in its service area used for cooking, bathing and drinking. The incident followed a malfunction at an arsenic treatment plant that the company discovered on Nov. 29 but initially chose not to publicize, as admitted by its former executive director, Brent Westmoreland, who abruptly retired in December.
At the time, Westmoreland told Source New Mexico, “…it would not have been a good idea to overly alarm people until we knew for sure what we were dealing with.”
His departure came a week after the county alerted affected residents that their water was unsafe to drink. By then, the tort claim argues, “residents unknowingly consumed and utilized contaminated water for almost 3 days.” Emergency supplies of bottled water were provided while the utility spent days flushing out water lines until water levels reflected safe levels of contaminants.
Days after that incident, the New Mexico Environment Department issued a notice of violation to the utility, saying it had failed to notify the state’s drinking water bureau that three of its arsenic treatment plants “have been offline and bypassed for over a year and that you were providing drinking water to your customers with high levels of arsenic.” The state agency required CRRUA to document corrective actions to 24 findings by Jan. 31. As Crosby told the board Monday, CRRUA addressed 22 of the 24 results by deadline, which did not satisfy NMED. Their response came with an administrative compliance order and a penalty of more than $250,000.
Crosby said CRRUA would complete inspections of all of its tanks and offer biweekly reporting on arsenic levels in the water, which he said were now well below the federal limit of 10 parts per billion.
Chávez said his team was working with an unspecified number of clients — “more than five” was the clearest estimate he offered, as he was still meeting with new prospects — affected by water quality issues he said extend back years. “…our clients and other residents suffered damages related to purchase of bottled water, medical costs, missed work and wages, pain and suffering, and other losses stemming from the agencies’ negligent failure to notify residents upon first knowledge of contamination on November 29th and failure to provide clean water to the residents, visits, and other water users,” the tort letter states.
Chávez's team indicated they would be interested in hearing from more households.
Inside the meeting, attorney Jessica Insurriaga notified the board of the tort and civil rights claims during public comment, after which the board’s chair, Susana Chaparro (also a Doña Ana County commissioner), said, “We are now in litigation” and limited the board’s comments on matters related to the claims.
Even so, vice chair Raul Telles criticized “outsiders” to the Sunland Park and Santa Teresa areas, such as water treatment system providers and “solicitors” who he alleged were dividing the community.
“There is no excuse, but CRRUA will do better,” he said. “It’s not going to be an overnight thing, but we will do better.”
Midway through the meeting, the attorneys left the meeting room, followed by television cameras and print reporters, assembling outside the office building where Chávez led the presentation wearing a business suit and cattleman hat.
“We will ensure that the people that were affected by this civil rights injustice, and the continuing civil rights injustices in this community related to water, are heard,” he said.
