ADMINISTRATOR’S REPORT

February 2010

 

 

           

The final water line bill for October’s bill is still not paid.  The contractor is not returning calls or working toward resolving any disagreements.  I met with Tracy Hughes, the General Counsel of the NM Environment Department and reached an agreement concerning our legislative appropriations.  We have resubmitted (third time) the necessary paperwork and should get a payment soon.

Our plant problems have been resolved.  The bugs are doing their thing and the centrifuge is up and running when needed.  I have spent some time working and talking with various experts about the sludge disposal site problems and am convinced that we are adding a no nitrogen additive to the soil that is already low in nitrogen.  This tends to kill plant life.  I will be getting with Taos Soil and Water Conservation to come up with a solution, so that when we take the new and dryer sludge out to the site in the spring we can incorporate something into the soil to allow plants to grow.

We have begun the process of obtaining a Collaborative Forest Restoration Project grant.  Our initial meeting was on the 15^th.  We’ll have a separate meeting with TSV, Inc., the Pattison Trust and Taos Holdings, LLC.  Amigos Bravos has indicated that they will probably support the project.  Coleman Burnett and I intend to meet with these groups on the 4^th.

We have been notified that we have been awarded two planning grants, one of $13,750.00  for the planning to acquire the treatment plant site and one of $33, 750.00 for the Preliminary Engineering Report (PER) for a new plant.  Both grants will be of great assistance to us, but we will probably spend more than what was awarded.  Don and I talked with Kent Sharpe and asked that he send our application for the 14 acres to the Forest Service to start the process.  We had budgeted $50,000.00 for the PER, so we had just asked the Engineer’s to begin that process when we received notice of the award.

On the 26^th, I attended a day long Safety Counseling meeting in Albuquerque.  Our cost ratio is 1.04, so we need to keep trying to lower it.  I think the Worker’s Compensation claim of Brian Duran has put us above 1.00, but it should go down in the next two years. 

Finally, the recent storms have resulted in the use of overtime.  The one on the 21^st required our guys to work until midnight and a new crew to begin at 5:00 the next morning.  They did a remarkable job keeping up with the snow fall.