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Bonito Lake reopening, conservation and utilities reserves highlighted in Alamogordo budget workshop
Summary
Parks and recreation and utilities staff briefed commissioners on Bonito Lake restoration and stocking, upstream conservation work and the city’s utility and landfill reserve needs as part of departmental budget presentations.
Officials from Parks and Recreation and Utilities told commissioners Tuesday that Bonito Lake reopened after wildfire-related interruptions and remains a focus of preservation and upstream erosion-control projects.
Belinda Bass, director of Parks and Recreation, said the city-owned lake — located in Lincoln County — was dredged and refilled in 2023 and stocked with rainbow trout in May 2024. The lake closed briefly following a later wildfire in the area but reopened in August 2024. Bass said the city has worked with state and federal partners and regional engineers to construct sediment basins and other erosion-control features to protect the lake’s access, infrastructure and fisheries.
Bass described the lake as a high-use recreational site with “hundreds of visitors per week” and said the city has begun rehabilitation of the fishing access structure, including ADA stairway improvements and new railings. She also described an effort to preserve historic orchards above the lake using cloning and propagation work to protect heirloom tree varieties.
Utilities staff and engineers outlined broader water and landfill financial issues. Public presentation materials explained that the city’s wastewater reclamation facility is a sequencing batch reactor designed for average daily flows around 3 million gallons, with peak capacity near 6 million gallons per day; treated effluent is stored and used for irrigation at parks and fields. Utilities staff also highlighted the convenience-center transfer station and the Otero Green Tree Regional Landfill, noting modern landfill engineering and the regulatory requirement that the landfill maintain substantial reserves to fund a new cell and long-term closure/post-closure obligations.
A utilities presentation estimated that landfill reserve requirements exceed $2 million; staff said officials must balance those statutory reserves against the capital cost of the next cell. City staff said those figures will be part of the budget discussions that resume tomorrow and emphasized that some decisions must await confirmation of the city’s July 1 beginning-cash.
