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<br />GROUP B PROBLEMS <br /> <br />Wate~ Supply and Related Quality Problems in. the El Paso Area. <br /> <br />There are four major sources of freshwater in El Paso County. <br />Three are groundwater sources and consist of (1) the Hueco Bolson <br />deposits in which fresh groundwater occurs just east of the <br />Franklin Moun"ains in a trough-shaped subsurface zone ex"ending <br />from the Texas-New Mexico state line southward "0 the Rio Grande <br />into Mexico; (2) the La Mesa Bolson deposits which underlie the <br />Texas por"ion of the Mesilla Valley west of the Franklin Mountains; <br />and (3) the Rio Grande alluvium which overlies the Hueco and <br />La Mesa Bolson deposits in the El Paso Valley and Mesilla Valley, <br />respectively. <br /> <br />The fourth source of water for El Paso County is the Rio <br />Grande, with water being provided for irrigation and a smaIl <br />quantity of public supply by the Bureau of Reclamation's Rio <br />Grande Project of New Mexico and Texas from storage in Elephant <br />Butte Reservoir in New Mexico. <br /> <br />The City of El Paso is the largest user of groundwa"er in <br />the county. The major source of the City's water supply is "he <br />Hueco Bolson deposi"s, with the three aquifers in the La Mesa <br />Bolson deposits and Rio Grande alluvium in the Mesilla Valley <br />being secondary sources. A third source of Lhe City's water <br />supply is surface water from the Rio Grande obtained through <br />contracts with the El Paso County Water Improvement District <br />No. 1 which in turn receives i"s water allotments from the Rio <br />Grande Project. Other municipal and industrial users of ground- <br />water in El Paso County include Fort Bliss, an electric utility, <br />a natural gas company, two oil refineries, a Copper refinery, <br />several golf courses and a dairy. <br /> <br />The City of Juarez JUSt across the Rio Grande from El Paso <br />in Chihuahua, Mexico, is the second largest user of groundwater <br />for municipal and industrial purposes in the El Paso area. Their <br />source of groundwater is the Hueco Bolson deposits which, as indi- <br />cated previously, is the primary source of water for the Ci"y of <br />El Paso. <br /> <br />Total groundwater pwnpage for municipal and industrial supplies <br />in El Paso County amounted to about 101,074 acre-feeL in 1974. <br />About eighty percent of this amounL was pumped by municipalities, <br />primarily the City of El Paso, and about twen"y percent was pumped <br />by various industries. In 1974, the City of Juarez pumped about <br />37,133 acre-feet of groundwater from the Hueco Bolson deposits for <br />municipal and industrial use. <br /> <br />67 <br /> <br />" r ,'" <br />G'~.I~.v~U <br />