Inspections conducted Feb. 7 by a team of commercial divers determined one of the city of Española’s water tanks must be replaced and another repaired, Española Water Director Marvin Martinez said.
“The recommendation is that they decommission that tank immediately,” Martinez said of Tank 1-A, located on Santa Clara Peak Road. “Someone throws a rock at that tank, and it’s going to burst.”
Martinez said 40 years of use have worn the tank “paper thin.”
Replacing it at the same location would cost about $350,000, Acting City Manager Veronica Albin said. If the city moves the tank a mile uphill, which the Bartolomé Sanchez Land Grant has asked it to do, the cost would rise to about $1.5 million, Albin said.
Tank 1-A provides water for fire suppression and domestic use to two businesses — the old Duke City sawmill and DTT Sand and Gravel, Martinez said. If moved, it would provide fire protection to much of Industrial Park Road and the adjoining streets, Albin said.
The city is asking the state legislature to re-appropriate an award that could fund that project, Albin said. Otherwise, the city might pay for it with a $6.5 million loan for drinking water from the state Finance Authority.
The inspections were prompted by a small wet spot recently found in the dirt near the tank, water operator Ramon Marquez said. The divers applied a special waterproof epoxy as a temporary seal over the exposed metal, Ian Stephens, one of the divers, said.
Martinez could not provide estimates for repairing corrosion at the bottom of Tank 2, located next to the North Central Solid Waste Authority transfer station on Industrial Park Road.
An anode — one of two or more electrically-charged pieces of metal that together prevent corrosion through electrolysis — inside the tank came lose and dropped to the bottom of the tank, causing the corrosion, Martinez said.
That tank was installed in 1989 and was rehabilitated between eight and 10 years ago, Martinez said.
Tank 2 provides fire suppression and back-up water throughout the city.