Public works director says recent snow improved water outlook; AMI rollout and spillway work planned

Angelique Maldonado, Farmington's public works director, told the City Council that recent precipitation and snowmelt have improved local water indicators and that staff are taking multiple steps to bolster supply and reduce losses.

Maldonado said Lake Farmington was about 96% full at the time of her presentation and, with current inflows, staff projected it could reach 100% by May 1. She described a late‑year dredging effort that removed about 4 feet of sediment from the lake's basins (the volume was reported in the presentation as roughly 300,000,000 gallons equivalent), and said staff have been pumping at about 11,000 gallons per minute at the Animas pump station to refill the reservoir.

To limit future losses and improve responsiveness, the city plans to begin installing advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in April. Maldonado said AMI will provide leak detection and a customer portal so residents can monitor real‑time use; staff will install meters in phases starting with city facilities and large turf areas before residential meters, and estimated full installation would take on the order of one year for all 16,000 meters.

On treatment infrastructure, Maldonado said Water Treatment Plant 1 work began in 2024 and is scheduled for completion in July, with capital work to date including replacement of pumps, valves, piping and filter media; she gave a cost estimate for the project so far of about $30,000,000 and said the east gallery is back online while the west gallery awaits delivery of a couple of pumps. She also described a planned chemical building (about 2,100 square feet) to house disinfection and caustic soda systems and a new backwash tank to reduce backwash volumes.

Maldonado noted the city is 30% complete on design for a labyrinth-style spillway raise. She said a 5‑foot raise could add roughly 400,000,000 gallons of storage (about 30 days of additional capacity at peak flow), and that combining dredging with the spillway raise could extend the reservoir's usable days further; she cautioned that additional design work, easements, perimeter road work and other construction would be required and that funding must be secured before construction.

Councilors asked technical questions about how the dredging and spillway raise interact, the timeline and funding for the spillway, the AMI deployment phases and the schedule for AECOM's final evaluation; Maldonado said AECOM's work is at 30% design and that a fuller presentation is expected in March. Mayor and council thanked Maldonado and requested continued public education about water efficiency.