Boil Advisories, Costs, Aging System: Timberon’s Water District Woes
Boil advisories, broken pipes, and financial burdens strain the unincorporated community 31 miles south of Cloudcroft
Every year, the Timberon pool opens for the public to enjoy. This summer, it sits empty. No lifeguards have been hired, no certified pool operators scheduled.
The gates are locked, and the reason goes much deeper than the swimming pool itself.
The decision surfaced at the Timberon Water and Sanitation District’s (TWSD) May 12 board meeting. According to the meeting minutes, district leadership reported that the Timberon Development Council was working toward opening the pool “for next season,” not this one.
The water district that owns it is fighting to keep a 50-year-old system running.
District Under Strain
Residents report water outages for stretches at a time.
On June 8, the district issued a precautionary boil-water advisory following a weekend tank drain, and another on June 16. The advisories warn that a drop in pressure could raise the risk of contamination, though none was detected, according to the posting on the TWSD website.
According to the 2020 census, Timberon is home to roughly 345 people. Scattered across the Sacramento Mountains in Otero County, it’s a small community by design, a place where people come to retire, hunt, or get away.
The swimming pool has long been one of the district's amenities that brings visitors in, deeded to the Timberon Property Owners’ Association in 1975.
“It’s a great draw for us,” said Otis Price, the district’s board chairman. “A lot of people come from Cloudcroft and the surrounding areas to use it.”
Price said the pool cost about $30,000 to operate last summer and brought in roughly $3,500 in revenue, a $26,500 loss.
“We were overwhelmed with the task in front of us, and then the finances to allow the pool to open,” Price said.
The Timberon Development Council, a separate community organization, is now working on fundraising and programs that might make reopening possible next year.
A Failing System, Decades Old
Price said that the water lines beneath Timberon are breaking faster than crews can fix them.
“Last month, I think we had close to 50 pipe breaks, in a hundred miles of pipe. Our guys are working around the clock seven days a week, just repairing the pipe leaks,” he said. “The water system was constructed approximately 50 years ago with inferior materials. Now it’s really failing exponentially.”
Price said the district can finally chase grant money again after getting its audits and inventory systems back in order. He said the district recently applied for funding, and was recently awarded a Colonias infrastructure grant. According to the May 12 minutes, that Colonias award came in at $367,000.
Price said additional, larger infrastructure requests are pending. But grants take time, and the pipes are failing now.
“We haven’t been getting the grants we needed. The structure wasn’t in place until Wendy [Case] and I started … We’re getting our audits in place so now we can start applying for new grants.”
Wendy Case, the district’s general manager, declined an interview request.
A Fight Over Fees
In a December 2010 order approving an emergency rate increase (Case No. 10-00366-UT), the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) documented roughly $275,000 in past-due standby accounts, with about 20 percent of those customers behind on payments. In the same order, the commission warned that district management might not have the experience to overcome what it called years of mismanagement and neglect.
Unlike incorporated municipalities such as Cloudcroft, Timberon is an unincorporated community.
Under New Mexico law, only municipalities can levy local gross receipts taxes. In unincorporated areas, that revenue flows to the state and county. That leaves the district dependent largely on water fees and property taxes.
Bill Eakes, a Timberon homeowner who said he spent more than three decades in banking and corporate crisis management, said that Timberon is in trouble.
“At my last meeting, I made the statement that this town and this water company are literally in a death spiral. And there was probably 15 people in the room, and not one of them objected to that statement,” Eakes said.
His central recommendation is professional help, a turnaround consultant, or what he calls a crisis manager. He also wants the district to separate water from everything else and win a legislative exception that would let Timberon incorporate, opening the door to the recurring tax revenue it can’t collect now.
But Eakes said that much of the village has simply lost faith after watching board after board fail to fix decades-old problems.
“If Timberon would have been a normal water association, I think they would have been able to do fine,” he said.
Some residents place part of the blame on the district’s operation and levying of fees.
In 2012, after a court order cut the district’s property tax revenue, the board created a “facilities and services charge.” The charge is a flat annual fee assessed per lot to help fund the pool, roads, parks, and cemetery.
In March, Michael Gonzalez, a former TWSD board member, filed a formal complaint with the PRC challenging that fee. He argues the district has no authority to charge property owners for services beyond water and sanitation, and that it never obtained the state approval he contends the fee requires.
His wife, Noreen Gonzalez, spoke with the Reader on the family’s behalf and said the couple stopped paying the fee in 2019 and is waiting on the commission to rule.
“For six years they didn’t even follow their resolution,” she said. “They just kept charging people.”
“If it’s found out to be that this fee is lawful, we will pay it,” she said. “It’s enjoyable for the people to use these facilities if they choose to. I’ve never seen where it’s mandated that you pay for a service that you may or may not use. You, coming from Cloudcroft can pay $5 to go to the pool. Me, being a resident and living here, I have to pay this [fee] per lot that I own, plus I have to pay to use these facilities. And I don’t think that’s fair.”
The district’s answer to the complaint is due before the commission later this summer.
“It is legal,” Price said. “There’s one lawsuit that’s been going on for years that we’re about to end. You look on our website, it has an explanation of what that is, and it has the documentation of what makes it legal.”
“Pay your bills. I mean, if they didn’t pay their taxes here in the county, it would go up for auction. It’s a utility thing,” Treasurer Josh McCurdy said. “This place has definitely been a shambles at some point. I really don’t care what happened in the past. I’m looking to the future just to try to improve it.”
“New Mexico is making good money off the cannabis taxes, the oil,” he said, “But a lot of that money just goes to Santa Fe and Albuquerque and gets spent, and everybody south of Socorro feels like stepchildren.”
At its June 9 meeting, the board approved a series of standby property liens and directed its attorney to review the district’s collection policy, including options for foreclosure on properties with existing liens.
Director Jesse Duckett said more than 200 properties are now eligible for foreclosure over unpaid standby fees, a charge separate from the facilities fee the Gonzalezes are contesting.
The Gonzalezes’ complaint over the facilities fee remains before the PRC. Meanwhile, the pipes keep breaking, and the money to replace them has not yet arrived.
The board is also down a member, with Vice Chair Caleb Flora resigning June 17. The district has 30 days to appoint a replacement.
Price framed the moment as a difficult chapter rather than an ending.
“Timberon, we’re starting to come back. But right now the system is failing faster than ever,” he said. “We’ve still got some dark times to go through until it gets back to normal.”
The pool, for now, stays closed, with hopes of opening next summer.
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