El Paso Water purchased a 300-acre Upper Valley site last month to preserve open space, but didn’t inspect a 117-year-old dam on the property that is now in danger of breaching and flooding nearby areas, utility officials said Friday in response to questions from El Paso Matters.
“Structural assessments of the dam were not conducted as part of the acquisition process,” El Paso Water spokesperson Denise Parra said. “After taking ownership, the EPWater Stormwater team identified the hazardous condition of the dam and immediately began to address structural issues.”
The dam is in an area known as Cement Lake or Portland Cement Reservoir, between Interstate 10 and Paisano Drive. The site was previously used by companies that made cement.
El Paso Water has been working to drain the water from the reservoir to prevent a dam collapse. Some businesses near the dam, including Rosa’s Cantina, have been closed as a precaution. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for sections of Paisano Drive and Loop 375 near the dam.
El Paso County records show that the Public Service Board, which oversees El Paso Water, bought the property as of March from the Texas Department of Transportation.
El Paso Water paid TxDOT $4 million in cash and exchanged other property it owned, which isn’t identified in deed records, which was valued at $7.5 million.
The National Dam Inventory, maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, shows the earthen dam was built in 1909, and was last inspected in 1996. The dam is identified as Portland Cement Reservoir Dam in the database.
The dam is 40 feet tall and 450 feet long, and has a storage capacity of 192 acre-feet of water. That’s enough to supply 400-600 homes with water for a year.
It is categorized as low-hazard dam, meaning that failure isn’t expected to cause loss of life and would likely cause minor property damage.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is the state agency in charge of dam safety. But because it’s considered low-hazard, no state inspections were required, TCEQ spokesperson Richard Richter said.
A Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson said the agency couldn’t provide a comment on the situation until next week.
El Paso Water purchased the 300-acre site for preservation as open space by the agency’s stormwater utility, Parra said. She said 10% of the stormwater utility’s revenues are reserved for open space purchases.
“The City’s Open Space Advisory Board identified this land and placed it on a list for desired preservation a number of years ago,” Parra said.
“Additionally, EPWater more recently needed an easement on the property for critical wastewater infrastructure, and through discussions with TxDOT, the agency required that the full 300 acres be acquired,” she said.
Before the purchase, El Paso Water’s chief concern was possible contamination from the area’s prior industrial use, so it conducted an environmental assessment, Parra said.
The post El Paso Water didn’t assess a now-failing dam before acquiring Cement Lake property last month appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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