City, prison move toward water agreement

By Aimee Staten, Managing Editor
Published on Monday, August 14, 2006 10:11 AM MST

The federal prison on Swift Trail and the city of Safford are working on an agreement that will provide more water for both parties.

The prison, which is constructing new quarters to house 500 additional inmates, currently only has wells for its water needs.

“They are water poor when it comes to fire suppression,” Safford Utilities Director Jay Howe said at Monday’s regular City Council meeting.

Safford, on the other hand, is interested in expanding its water resources, and the prison has land on which the city wishes to drill test wells.

The proposed agreement will involve an exchange of the land where the wells will be drilled and a water line from the city to the prison. Also included in the negotiations is a two-million-gallon water storage tank from the prison for the city.

Howe said the drilling for test wells stopped at about the time he became utilities director several years ago because of a controversy involving the water on state land.

“This (agreement) will get us more water above ground on land that will eventually be given to us,” he said.

Safford City Manager Huey Long said the city has lobbied for this agreement when it visits with the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C.

“We’ll be supplying water services to the prison,” he said.

The water line to the prison area has already been constructed.

Howe gave some credit for the agreement to city employee Darrin Gordon, who he said has contacts within the prison system.

The prison also plans to build additional warehouses and covered parking areas for its staff.

In other matters, the council:

Approved an agreement between the city, Sunlink Systems Inc. and Zion’s First National Bank for a new city telephone system. The bank will supply the financing for the project.

Safford’s Derek Kruger, who was given the task of finding a new telephone system, said the current system has numerous problems and is reaching the end of its natural life.

There are separate phone switches for each city building; lines are often busy, and there is no interconnection between the departments. The city also has problems with its voicemail and must limit incoming and outgoing calls.

The city solicited bids from local providers, including Qwest, Sunlink and Valley Telecom.

The requirements for the winning bidder were that it would supply one system for the entire city and integrated voicemail and allow for conferencing, paging, self support, redundancy and be extensible and expandable.

“We wanted more bang for our buck,” Kruger said.

The system’s hardware and lease will cost the city $61,690 over five years for a buyout.

Don Knight, the head of the newly reorganized administrative services, said the city budgeted for this expense.

Kruger said the system should last about 10 years and will allow for expansion in the future.

He said the current system has been in place for about 10 years. Training is provided by Sunlink.

Approved the budget for FY 2006-07. Councilor Ed Ragland said he was glad to see some growth in the budget, even on the expenses side, because it means the city is growing.

“It’s kind of nice to see things happening,” he said.

Heard a report by Howe on the progress of talks with the Bureau of Land Management regarding the Bonita Creek watershed.

Howe said the city has included all of its concerns on a draft agreement, and once the agreement is returned to the city, it will go to the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife for their blessings.

“We’re a ways off from the final (agreement),” Howe said. “We’re at least close to being able to present the BLM and Safford agreement to you.”

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3 comment(s)

you know who I am wrote on Nov 2, 2008 5:30 PM:

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