MAN HITS CHILD WITH A METAL BAR PUBLIC SAFETY, A7
Gallup Sun VOL 10 | ISSUE 487
www.gallupsun.com
July 26, 2024
Picking from a long list of to-dos COUNCIL DISCUSSES TOP FIVE PRIORITIES FROM ICIP FOR STATE FUNDING places around the world, if we don’t contend with the wastewater there is potential to put some of the public at risk because of what they may come in contact with. So, we’ve got to be able to take that waste and transform it into a condition where it’s not harming the public or the environment.” One of the biggest problems with the wastewater treatment plant’s current situation is that a lot of the equipment is outdated – some of it was installed in 1972. City staff have been working with RBC Wealth
The water pipes at the intersection of Highway 491 and Lincoln Avenue were replaced in August. The city has had many scheduled and unscheduled water outages throughout the year due to the age of the pipes. File Photo By Molly Ann Howell Managing Editor
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very year the state asks city municipalities to come up with a list of infrastructure projects that they need help funding. The list is called the Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan, and the Gallup City Council recently approved theirs for fiscal years 2026-2030. In total, the city listed over 70 projects, with a total cost of over $450 million. Some of that amount has been funded already, but not much. The city still needs to fi nd almost $440 million of that amount. During the July 9 city council meeting, the city’s Planning and Development Director C.B. Strain told the councilors that they needed to prioritize a top five from the items on the list so that it could be sent to the state. Once the state looks over the list, they will provide some funding for these projects, but it is a limited amount, and the city will have to decide what goes where. Last time, the state only provided almost $10.5 million for Gallup’s ICIP projects. After a lengthy discussion, the councilors decided on their top five priorities: replacing cast iron lines, wastewater treatment plant improvements, the city’s water wells, the new airport terminal, and providing mill and overlay services on city streets. In an interview with the Sun District 2 City Councilor Michael Schaaf explained how difficult it was to narrow down a top five list from the complete list. “All these are good projects, we need them, but the top five benefit all citizens because everyone uses those things,” he said. REPLACING CAST IRON LINES Replacing cast iron lines throughout the entire city is a huge project. Gallup’s Public Works Director Robert Hamblen told the council that replacing all the pipes would cost about $30.5 million. So far, the city only has $500,000 of that amount. Part of the reason new cast iron lines are on one of the foremost priorities is because the city needs them in order to transfer over to the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project when it’s ready in 2030. Mayor Louie Bonaguidi explained why it was so important by comparing Gallup to Flint, Michigan. In 2015, outstanding levels of lead were detected in drinking water in Flint. The cause of the lead leaching into the water was corrosion of the water distribution system’s service pipes and solder. In a water distribution system, corrosion of piper and solder causes the dissolution of these materials. The metals then leach into the water supply, which causes lead and copper concentration in the water to increase. To prevent Gallup from facing a similar fate, the
The sign outside the City of Gallup Wastewater Treatment Plant. File Photo cast iron pipes need to be replaced as soon as possible. There’s also a more immediate problem. The city’s water department puts out public safety announcements alerting citizens about scheduled and unscheduled water outages on an almost weekly basis. When a water line breaks, the department has to jump into action to make sure people aren’t without water for too long. Councilor Sarah Piano, District 3, said replacing the old water lines would solve this problem in a proactive way rather than a reactive one. “We want to fi x things so that they don’t keep breaking, because right now when we see pipes breaking, then obviously we have to fi x those right away because we can’t just have water pipes bursting in the city,” she said. “It’s better for us to be proactive rather than reactive to try and get these replaced prior to them breaking.” When he was elected to office in September, one of District 4 Councilor Ron Molina’s top concerns was the city’s infrastructure. He owns Ron Molina Gas Services, and part of his crews’ job is getting underneath the city’s roads and working around the sewer pipes. Even though those are not the water lines, Molina said that those lines would break from just the pressure of his crews’ backhoes. “That’s when I started realizing how old the infrastructure of the city was,” he said. Bonaguidi pointed out the fact that replacing the water would also include fi xing the streets up. “I hope we change as many waterlines as we can,” he said. “Of course, whenever you dig up a street if anything needs replaced you replace anything that’s bad or old. Sewer lines, water lines, or whatever, and of course the asphalt on top of that. WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT Along the same lines, the council is hoping to improve the wastewater treatment plant. In an interview with the Sun, the city’s Water and Sanitation Director Curtis Tallis explained the importance of the wastewater facility. “The waste that is produced by a residential home has the potential to be a health risk or danger to health,” he said. “If you look at history or even some
Management, a company that helps organizations manage their fi nancial goals, to determine how much money the city would need for the wastewater treatment plant’s repairs. Strain listed the needed amount for the wastewater facility repairs as $15 million in the ICIP summary document he gave to the council. However, Bonaguidi said the planned fi xes won’t solve the facility’s overarching problem.
See FIVE PRIORITIES, Page A3
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