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Lower Rio Grande Mutual Domestic Water Association board of directors receives RCAC volunteer award

August 27, 2012

Las Cruces, N.M. — Five water systems that serve eight southern New Mexico colonias—unincorporated rural towns along the US-Mexico border — struggle with drinking water quality and access, wastewater disposal, dirt roads with no street lights, access to medical services, and substandard housing conditions. Through a regionalization effort, the communities have joined forces to form the Lower Rio Grande Public Water Works Authority (LRGPWWA). Regionalization ensures safe and reliable water services, creates local jobs through infrastructure expansion, and attracts new housing development and commercial growth. RCAC is recognizing the original six-member board of directors’ contribution to their community with the 2012 Yoneo Ono Award.

Yoneo Ono was an RCAC founding board member, and he also sat on the board of Self-Help Enterprises and other organizations in Fresno County too numerous to name. To recognize his lifelong commitment to rural development, and volunteer community service, RCAC presented Ono with an award upon his retirement from the board of directors in 1984. Since then, RCAC has presented the Yoneo Ono Award to 29 rural volunteers who have made significant lifelong contributions to their communities.

On November 8, RCAC will present the original LRG board of directors— Roberto “Marty” Nieto, Gabriel Gutierrez, Ismael Borunda, Karen Nichols, Roosevelt Boyer and Don Wells— with the Yoneo Ono Award and $2,000, which the newly formed authority will use for a project of its choice.

Las Cruces, N.M. – RCAC supported the group as it organized the community. RCAC staff helped draft House Bill 185, which passed the New Mexico legislature and was signed into law by then Gov. Richardson in 2009 to authorize creation of the LRGPWWA, and gave it power to share water rights, declare a service area, and float revenue bonds while retaining its community autonomy. The law now serves as a template for other small water systems across the state to merge and share resources.

Before the regional Lower Rio Grande authority expanded service, residential and commercial property often burnt to the ground because there was not enough water to fight fires.

“We accomplished something that everybody thought would never happen,” said board president Roberto “Marty” Nieto. He says that regionalization stopped employee turnover because the new authority now can afford competitive benefits to its employees. The authority as a regional water district allows the five water systems to share water resources, equipment, staff, office space and purchasing, and thereby greatly decreases costs and improves service to community residents and benefits to the authority employees.

Water operator and board member Gabriel Gutierrez has felt these effects firsthand. “Before, if you came to work sick, it was ‘good grief,’ like Charlie Brown,” says Gutierrez. Today, with adequate staff, Gutierrez has peace of mind knowing the community won’t be without water if he needs to stay home when he is sick.

Still, Nieto says “the need is drastic, but we do have the intent to expand and cover a lot of the areas that our county government isn’t able to keep up with. We need paved roads, indoor gyms, swimming pools, soccer fields, baseball parks, and services for our senior citizens on fixed incomes.” Martin Lopez, the LRGPWWA general manager, sees regionalization as an important step in the right direction. “We’re looking to move beyond water and sewer systems to economic development, partnering with folks to bring affordable housing, and other things we didn’t have a chance to look at as smaller entities,” says Lopez.

RCAC continues to support development in the LRGPWWA. Watch LRGPWWA video >>

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