Mr. Jimmy Janacek sent us this document titled “Don’t Drink The Toilet Water”. Click on this link:
Reading it I saw a link to another blog named “Citizens Make The Call” that we are adding to our list of local blogs. I suggest that you spend some time looking at what they say.
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Has that blog been updated after 2011?
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I think Janacek just gave up – there was no public response, even after he spent his own money to advertise his cause and blog on a billboard along I-10…the “culture of corruption” is pretty much matched by a “culture of apathy.”
Beto more or less acknowledged that city politicians “cut a deal” in order to prevent the downsizing or even closure of Fort Bliss. Who actually benefits from the presence of Fort Bliss is hard to say. The troops increasingly shop on base; I don’t live in the Northeast but have friends who do who say they never see troops in the few stores there are out there. I have seen uniformed patients at the oncology center, but basic medicine is provided on base. Almost never see any uniformed visitors in our musems or other cultural sites.
Some major housing construction was done around the base…but that’s pretty much over. I suppose one benefit is keeping huge amounts of land out of development, otherwise we’d have hundreds of thousands of more ticky-tacky houses whose property taxes do not pay for the services provided…
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Beto is right. City Politicians “cut a deal” that will cost water customers around “1 Billion.” They did not have the authority to cut such a deal. They violated 16 of their own rule and regulations and now EPWU will shut off a families water if they are unable to pay for a subsidy to Fort Bliss. Our government is cheating and lying to its citizens.
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The salination plant should belong to the City of El Paso…not Fort Bliss. The PSB story in the EPTimes today 12/9 says the total in increased budget to be approved by city council tomorrow over last year is 24%!!! That’s a helluvan increase from one year to the next. Public Service Board??? Their independent, behind-the-scenes actions are definitely off the mark on the meaning of “public service.” Was Joyce one of the key players on these deals? She’s just got her 3 year CEO appointment on the Rio Grande Workforce…still doing “wonders’ for the city. Yeah right!
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Consider who might have helped JW get her appointment to Rio Grande Workforce. Is it a mere coincidence that JW received this appointment after pushing through the ballpark, which benefited and was supported by people with strong ties to Gov. Perry?
As I understand it, the city also let her to to the Workforce Commission before her contract expired and even continued to pay her, enabling her to double dip at taxpayer expense. I guess rewarding her with a job in one of the private companies owned by those she helped while city manager would have been a wee bit obvious.
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I wonder if she is responsible for designating funds to Southwest University.
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I miss the brownfield blog.
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We are all drinking “toilet water” now.
There is no new water. All the water on Earth has been used and reused endlessly.
In a normal year, El Paso gets half of our drinking water from the Rio Grande. We drink the “toilet water” from everyone upstream between here and Colorado. However, these are not “normal” years. 2013 was the drought of record, surpassing the record drought of the 1950s. We have no reason to think this drought is ending. We in El Paso drink river water for nine months of the “normal” irrigation season. In 2013 there was only water in the river for six weeks.
We must drink the “toilet water” or die of thirst.
To continue living in our desert, inviting more and more people to join us, we must expand the portfolio of water sources. PSB is doing the right thing to build Enhanced Reuse now, before we start dying of thirst.
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Thank you for that comment Judy. I see now that I have not presented the issue very well. My point is that the toilet water plant is an unnecessary expense. EPWU should obey their own rules and regulations, stop wholesaling water to Fort Bliss and return that water to their customers.
The city politicians “cut a deal” that was not in the best interest of the average water customer. We all know that money is the mothers milk of politics.
The average water customer can’t afford to make large political contributions or to form a lobby group to oppose the Chamber of Commerce and the Paso Del Norte Group. The average water customer has to rely on the government to follow its own rules and regulations.
Please look at the appeal that I filed and you will see that EPWU management violated 16 rules and regulations that were designed to protect the average water customer. EPWU management was hired to enforce those rules but they betrayed the average water customer, sold their water to Fort Bliss and left the average water customer to drink recycled toilet water. The President/CEO was rewarded with annual compensation of over $500,000. Classic Cronyism.
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That is correct, but the point of Mr. Janacek’s piece is the subsidy to Fort Bliss paid for by EP taxpayers.
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Here’s a big water story. Recommended reading!
http://elpasonaturally.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-gloves-are-off.html
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Good recommendation. Niland wants the land to be under the control of City Council so that she and her allies can control the sale of land. It’s no coincidence that she has close ties to developers. That pretty much says it all.
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Yes, a good post. My only comment would be that the PSB has facilitated the “land grab” by constantly assuring us that there is water forever, and never suggesting that there might be some limit to the number of people who can live here so we might not want to keep on “inviting more and more people to join us.”
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Yes, Helen,
There is SOME POINT where there will not be enough. . .”process and reprocess old -briney?/ salt water from old wells, toilet water, muddy water run off, sweat from lizards, extra sweat from those at the PSB, etc.” for El Paso to function.
At what point will the city say: “ENOUGH !”
“We cannot have any more people come to El Paso or new homes built. “.
We do not HAVE the water NOW to have decent yards without violating “Watering rules”.
And actually paying for advertising to GET more people to move to El Paso is insane.
And new land aquired by PSB is sitting on top of the same bolson of water as the next well. Its the SAME water source.
More wells does not make more water.
Look at a map. Beyond Loop 375 east. . . . is desert the size of New Mexico. Does the El Paso city council really think we have water for all of the desert between Loop 375/ Zaragosa Road. . . and the Hueco Mountains. . . and beyond WAY out to the Border Patrol checkpoint just past the top of the Hueco Mountains?
Who will stop this?
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Thank you. There are nearly three million people now in the Pass of the North. Is that in fact already the limit? Maybe even too many? Does anyone think we can go to four, five, six million? There has not been an honest discussion of this in the 38 years I’ve been part of El Paso.
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