August 15 – An East Mountains community is $2.5 million closer to having a reliable drinking water supply.

Bernalillo County Commissioners unanimously approved general fund funding for the Carnuel Water and Wastewater Project during their regular commission meeting Tuesday.

For more than a decade, the county has worked with the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority to extend municipal water and sewer service to Carnuel. Some families in Carnuel rely on well water or tap water, says JJ Herrera, president of the Cañón de Carnué Land Grant.

“Many families are leaving their family homes where they have lived for generations,” Herrera said.

The Cañón de Carnué Land Grant was established in 1763, but Carnuel residents are also part of the city, with addresses in Albuquerque. Some wells are drying up as the water table drops, said Moises Gonzales, vice president of the Cañón de Carnué Land Grant.

“It’s really about our survival as a community,” Gonzales said. “If we don’t have sewerage and water, we’re not going to survive as a community.”

The money will be used to obtain grants from the State Water Trust Board. The grant the project is applying for could bring in $10 million to $15 million, said County Commissioner Eric Olivas, who sponsored the application.

“This is one of our original seven land donations. Only two of them are still really active and operating today,” Olivas said.

Carnuel is “geologically challenging” because many streets and houses are made of granite, Olivas said. The granite makes it more difficult and expensive to install water systems.

“Unlike in the South Valley, where you go through clay, or in Albuquerque on the West Mesa, where you go through sand, here you have to cut through granite, which increases the cost dramatically,” Gonzales said.

According to David Morris, spokesman for the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, local, state and federal lawmakers, along with the water authority and Carnuel’s Mutual Domestic Water and Wastewater Association, have already secured $12 million from the state Water Trust Board, the New Mexico Drinking Water Revolving Fund, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for Carnuel’s water system.

Since 2008, the water authority has completed 10 kilometers of pipeline and a 1,160,000-liter reservoir. Morris says the community still needs another 28 kilometers of pipeline. The next phase of water infrastructure construction has already been funded with $350,000 and is scheduled to be completed in the fall. This phase will involve the construction of an additional 195 meters of pipeline.

Bernalillo County has also awarded the water authority $3.8 million from the American Rescue Plan Act for a sewer system in Carnuel. The first phase of the sewer project is currently being bid and is scheduled to begin in the fall. The project includes the installation of approximately 13,000 feet of low-pressure sewer main that could serve 142 homes.

According to Morris, Carnuel has about 2,000 residents and 800 households.