Every spring Professor Zohrab Samani, Ph.D., P.E., at New Mexico State University (NMSU) brings his senior water resource engineering students to an off-campus class at Las Cruces Utilities (LCU), which includes a tour of a nearby City water well. It’s good exposure for the students; some of them may well be future engineers who will go on to work for LCU.
The water well they toured on this day is “Well 59B.” It’s one of 27 City wells providing drinking water to more than 100,000 residents and business customers across the city. This well (with its 250 horse power motor) is capable of pumping 1,700 gallons of water per minute from a depth of 760 feet.
Pascual Rodriguez, water production supervisor, explains “Inside the well building heavy-duty blue 10-inch ductile iron pipes flow thousands of gallons of water all day long. You see valves, regulators, and monitors; but the system is controlled and monitored 24-hours a day by the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system, which we consider to be the ‘brain’ of the water distribution system.”
The system constantly coordinates water wells, water tank levels, and booster stations (in addition to gas and sewer facilities) and monitors 87 remote sites. The SCADA system is up and running 24-hours a day along with LCU Emergency Dispatch employees who are also onsite at LCU 7-days a week / 24-hours a day to respond to any type of alarm or emergency.
Back inside LCU offices, Utilities Director, Jorge A. Garcia, Ph.D., P.E., explains to the class how big utility projects (such as drilling new City water wells with 30-40 year lifespans) are financed and gives the students an overview of the Water Resources Section explaining that LCU:
● pumps water from two deep aquifers (the Mesilla Bolson and the Jornada Bolson),
● provides safe drinking water to more than 35,000 home and business connections,
● maintains more than 600 miles of underground water lines and 4,000 fire hydrants,
● has the capacity to pump 42,000,000 gallons of drinking water every day, and
● meets and/or exceeds state and federal regulations governing production of safe drinking water.
You can reach Las Cruces Utilities at 528-3500 from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Las Cruces Utilities provides GAS – WATER – WASTEWATER – SOLID WASTE services to approximately 100,000 Las Cruces residents and businesses.
Suzanne Michaels provides this content on behalf of Las Cruces Utilities