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Proposed Facilities <br />Alamosa is currently faced with a <br />major change in how we produce and <br />distribute water. For the first time in <br />our history, we will be treating our <br />groundwater for potable use in order <br />to comply with increasingly stringent <br />state and federal regulations. This <br />two - supply system will provide non - <br />potable water to significant irrigation <br />users while serving the rest of the <br />City's water users with potable water. <br />We are currently constructing a new <br />water treatment facility and are also <br />making a significant investment to <br />upgrade our distribution system. <br />Recently enacted EPA requirements call for afive -fold reduction in the arsenic standards (from <br />50 µg /L to 10 µg/L) that forces us to develop a treatment system to achieve the new standard. <br />High levels of dissolved silica in our water supply greatly constrained our options for <br />compliance. <br />Overall the capital costs for this system will exceed $16 million which includes the cost of <br />design and construction of the plant and the design and installation of the new water lines needed <br />to upgrade our distribution system. Annual operations and maintenance costs are estimated to <br />add an additional $480,000 in 2006 dollars. <br />In an effort to reduce these costs, we have identified several large irrigation users that we will <br />supply with non - potable water, for the most part from existing wells. The 375,000 gallon ground <br />level storage tank will be used for irrigation storage purposes. Two of our existing confined <br />aquifer wells will be exclusively dedicated to non - potable uses with the remaining five wells <br />used for both potable and non - potable sources. <br />One major irrigation user, the back nine of the municipal golf course, will be irrigated using our <br />surface water rights from the Excelsior and /or Independent Ditch, thus removing this demand <br />from our confined aquifer sources. The front nine is currently irrigated with the unconfined <br />aquifer well Number 7. We are currently looking at the best way to convey the ditch water to a <br />surface storage facility on the golf course and the pumping system necessary to distribute the <br />water. We expect to have this system in place before the new water treatment plant is on -line in <br />2008. <br />City of Alamosa I Water Conservation Plan I May 2007 1 Page 8 of 29 <br />