[ANALYSIS]
Cloudcroft’s trustees voted last night to address a problem previous councils had kicked down the road for years: to fund the necessary fixes to keep the plant operating - or face the consequences of looming plant failure.
The council decided it was time to act.
Public Works Supervisor J.J. Carrizal told trustees the plant has been patched and postponed, with the answer always the same: “Wait till next year.”
On Tuesday, Trustees John Snook, Keith Hamilton, Matt Willett, and Danny Hardwick voted unanimously to approve up to $800,000 from the general fund to purchase four new membrane cassettes and rebuild the basin they sit in.
The membranes that do the plant’s most important filtering are wearing out, nitrogen readings are creeping toward the state limit, and replacement costs have jumped by a third since 2023. And before Cloudcroft can build the new multimillion-dollar wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) it ultimately needs, the membrane system will have to carry every gallon in town on its own.
“It’s been kicked down the road for many, many years. Now it’s on our table. We’ve got to fix it.”
— Public Works Supervisor J.J. Carrizal
Running Out of Time
The membranes are rated for about 10 years. In April, longtime plant operator Scott Powell told the Reader he hoped regular chemical cleanings would stretch them to 12 years or more. Tuesday, Carrizal passed photos around the dais showing how much they have deteriorated since installation.
The state’s draft permit would cap nitrogen at 10 milligrams per liter. Carrizal said Powell’s tests have come in around 6 to 8, but the readings are climbing as the cassettes’ pores close up with age.
The plant has no discharge permit now, which Carrizal called “totally weird.” Once the state issues one, the 10-milligram limit becomes enforceable.
Carrizal said the membranes’ performance readings, which he tracks in turbidity and pressure, are getting worse every month.
“We need this now because of the numbers that are dropping every day. I’m not asking money for my budget. I’m asking money for the village. We need this to function,” Carrizal said.
Powell cleans the membranes with chemicals twice a year, a job that takes up to a week. Once the full town’s flow runs through the system, Carrizal said, they’ll need cleaning more often. The new cassettes have more filter surface than the old ones.
Powell, who learned the system on his own, had planned to retire in December, though Public Works confirmed he plans to stay longer.
The stakes go beyond the plant itself. Carrizal said no one knows what the fines will be if the village ends up “sending raw sewage down the mountain untreated.”
Mayor Dusty Wiley said Wednesday that once the permit is in force, a plant that can’t meet it could face state fines of up to “$15,000 a day.”
The Cost
The cost of a single set of two cassettes has risen by about a third since 2023.
Manufacturer Veolia quoted one set of two cassettes in 2023 at more than $152,000. In 2026, that rose to more than $204,000, a 34% increase of about $52,000.
Buying two sets at once brings the price down to $346,435, about $86,600 per cassette. Bought separately, they’d run $102,000 each. Buying both sets together saves the village more than $60,000.
The project also needs an estimated $200,000 in basin work (concrete, piping, valves and a new liner), which will be contracted out.
The cassettes are made in Hungary. Trustee John Snook, an engineer, said he found no U.S. maker whose product would fit the existing system.
The cassettes and basin estimate come to about $546,000. The approval sets a ceiling of $800,000. Wiley said Wednesday the project will likely cost at least $600,000, and the final figure will depend on bids for the basin work.
Paying for It
No grant covers this project. The village’s four active grants are already committed: one to the wastewater SCADA upgrade, one to a fan press, and two smaller grants to CDM Smith’s engineering for solids handling. That leaves the general fund.
Village Clerk Jini Turri walked trustees through what the project would mean for the village’s finances. She said finance staff had a duty to show the impact of the expense.
“I don’t know that we have a choice,” Trustee Matt Willett said.
The money won’t go out all at once. Carrizal said 30% of the cassette price is due when the village places the order this fall, and the remaining 70% on delivery in about nine months. That works out to roughly $104,000 up front and $242,500 on delivery. The basin work, estimated at $200,000, is paid to a contractor while the cassettes are built.
Delivery falls after the new fiscal year starts on July 1, so most of the bill will land in next year’s budget. Turri said trustees’ approval covers the project up to $800,000 “whether it carries into the next fiscal year or not.”
The Reader will report separately on the village budget and finances.
First Steps in Five-Year Plan
The membranes are a step toward the long-term fix, not the fix itself. That fix is a new package plant, which CDM Smith estimates will cost $15 million to $17 million. It is the top priority on the village’s five-year capital improvement list.
Carrizal said CDM Smith will deliver a Preliminary Engineering Report by the end of October at no added cost, by modifying a master plan already in the works.
Wiley said wastewater will top the village’s list when trustees lobby in Santa Fe this coming January.
He doesn’t expect state capital outlay to cover the package plant, he said, because legislators prefer to fund projects in full, and a plant that could cost up to $20 million, by his estimate, is beyond what they can give. The village’s main target is the Water Trust Board, and Wiley said he’ll seek federal grants to help cover required matching funds. A 10% match on a $20 million plant would be $2 million.
The package plant will be built where the old plant now stands. That means every gallon has to run through the membrane system before the old plant can be taken offline.
Wiley said the village expects to sign its discharge permit with the state soon, and the permit will require a new plant within five years. He said the timing depends on the state.
Wiley called the membranes “the first step to make sure that the village is secure.”
“To me, without wastewater and without water, you can’t have a village,” he said.
What’s Next for Revenue
Wiley said he will ask trustees in November to start raising the village’s gross receipts tax, which is below the rate trustees can set without a public vote.
According to Wiley, the increase would bring Cloudcroft in line with Alamogordo, Ruidoso, and other nearby towns, and if approved, would take effect in the next fiscal year. He said the tax falls mostly on tourists.
Wiley said there has been no discussion of higher commercial water rates or a property tax increase. He plans to adjust water and trash rates each year by the inflation rate, with trustee approval, as the village did this year. He said past administrations didn’t make those yearly adjustments.
Setting sewer rates to cover the plant’s costs will be hard until the wastewater system’s finances are separated out, Wiley said. He looked into a study to do that, but decided the money was better spent keeping the plant running.
As for the package plant, the Water Trust Board, NMFA, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, USDA Rural Development and federal grants are the usual paths for a project this size. Most require matching funds.
How the Plant Works
The plant runs two systems side by side. A trickling filter, more than 65 years old, still carries half of the flow.
A membrane bioreactor, installed in 2017, uses membrane cassettes to filter wastewater so biological processes can remove nitrogen. Its basin has four bays: two hold the original, worn cassettes, and two have sat empty. Tuesday’s purchase replaces the worn pair and fills the empty bays, so the membrane system can eventually treat the whole town’s flow, which reaches nearly 230,000 gallons a day in peak tourist season.
More than Membranes
The plant has operated without an active discharge permit since 2017. A state draft permit has been stalled since March 2024.
The plant sits on Forest Service land the village has been working to buy since at least 2015. Lenders and regulators won’t finance major upgrades without it.
The village has approved a resolution obligating state grant funds for the purchase, which Wiley said is expected to close in December. Work the village paid for years ago may be credited toward the price, he said, which could cut the village’s share from about $60,000 to about $20,000.
Robert George, an independent expert contracted by the state, warned in writing that the plant’s clarigestor was failing. In April, he wrote: “Unlike many situations that are characterized as ‘emergencies’ in the realm of wastewater treatment, this actually is one.”
Crews bypassed the clarigestor and turned it into a sludge holding tank. Carrizal said Tuesday that the sludge now has to be hauled off at significant cost to the village.
After voting to spend from the general fund, the council's next challenge is to make decisions that are sustainable for years to come.
Carrizal made no promises about how long the fix will last. “I’m not guaranteeing you guys this is going to last 10, five years, who knows,” he said. “But we need this now.”
The Timeline
Oct. 13, 2026: Trustees approve the project, up to $800,000.
Coming weeks: The village issues a purchase order to Veolia, with about 30% of the cassette price due when the order is placed. The cassettes are manufactured overseas, which takes about eight to nine months, according to Carrizal. Meanwhile, the village bids out and builds the basin work, aiming to finish before delivery.
End of October: The plant’s long-awaited backup generator is due to be completed. Carrizal called it critical because the village must report to the state how it treats sewage during power outages. CDM Smith’s engineering report is due.
November: Wiley plans to bring a gross receipts tax increase before the trustees.
December: The Forest Service land purchase is expected to close.
January 2027: The village expects to sign its discharge permit and lobby legislators for wastewater funding.
About August to September 2027: The cassettes arrive and are installed, with two village employees required on site. Wiley said August is the earliest the full system could be running.
Within five years: The old plant comes out, and the package plant goes in, depending on state funding.
This original reporting drew on in-person attendance at the Tuesday, October 13 village meeting, meeting materials, recordings and transcripts, follow-up questions, emails, phone interviews, independent research, and previous reports.
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