|
|
|
|
Water Tower Proposed for Corrales Elementary |
|
|
|
Written by Jeff Radford
|
|
Saturday, 09 December 2006 |
Erection of a 60,000-gallon water tower on the grounds of Corrales Elementary School is being proposed.
A site development plan for the school with that water tank will be
considered by the Corrales Planning and Zoning Commission at its
December 20 meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m.
P&Z meetings are now held in the old fire station, now the council and court chamber.
A notice from the P&Z office states “if anyone wishes to comment on
the requests [for site plan approval] but cannot attend the meeting,
written comments must be received at the Village of Corrales Planning
and Zoning Department, 4324 Corrales Road, Corrales NM 87048 no later
than 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 14, 2006.”
According to the announcement, the “above-ground water storage tank”
would go at the southeast corner of the existing elementary school site.
The tank would hold twice as much water as the water tower at the
Village Office complex east of the Corrales Road-East La Entrada
intersection.
The proposal is intended to provide water for fire suppression, and is
part of a village-wide assessment of needs for more, and strategically
located, storage tanks.
In addition to the water tower near the Senior Center, a second has
gone up behind the new Fire Department substation in the Far Northwest
Sector.
Planning is under way for three to four more water storage towers to be
installed at other locations around the community. Funding for them has
mostly already been obtained.
Presumably Albuquerque Public School will pay for the tower at Corrales Elementary.
Approximately $375,000 was appropriated during the 2005 and 2006
sessions of the State Legislature for the Village’s new
fire suppression wells and water tanks which are estimated to cost
$160,000 each, not counting any land acquisitions.
Fire Chief Anthony Martinez, a 16-year veteran with the Corrales Fire
Department, explained this summer he has sought advice from the State
Fire Marshall’s Office to determine the Village’s best options.
One of the most important factors in selecting sites for the new wells
and tanks will be to match areas of greatest potential need to
locations where the Village already owns land to put the wells and
tanks, he said.
Need for the tanks is based on the lack of fire hydrants. Without a
municipal water system to feed hydrants, water to fight fires has to be
trucked in from the nearest source of large volumes of water.
In recent years, that water has come from four sources: the well and
water tank behind the Village Office, just east of the Corrales Road-La
Entrada intersection; Pueblo los Cerros condos’ well southwest of the
Loma Larga-Meadowlark intersection; a fire hydrant behind Corrales
Center; and various Rio Rancho fire hydrants to the west and north
beyond Corrales’ boundaries.
Fire Chief Martinez has studied where new wells and storage tanks might
be located for at least a year. The one at the new sub-station (at the
confluence of the Harvey Jones and Dulcelina Curtis flood control
channels at the north end of the valley) was an easy choice. But where
should the next three or four go?
He has drawn three circles with half-mile radii on a map of Corrales
showing the coverage that will be available once the tower at the new
sub-station is available, probably by the end of the year. The
map shows gaps (territory not within a half-mile of either the
substation, the tank at the Village Office Complex or the Pueblo los
Cerros storage tank) in the central-west portion of Corrales, the
extreme southeastern part (although fire hydrants exist in the Corrales
neighborhood behind Las Tiendas de Corrales Center) and the northerly
east portion of Corrales.
In Martinez’s analysis, it’s not simply a matter of trying to put a
water supply within a half-mile of every home, but putting it near the
areas of greatest need, such as in the commercial district.
In that perspective, it seems to make sense to put at least one of the
next three or four tanks at the current fire station across from Rancho
de Corrales. Right now, fire trucks and tankers have to go down to
the tank at the Village Office Complex to load up with water.
The Village now has three tanker trucks that can pull underneath
the tanks’ down-spout to take on water very rapidly by gravity
flow.
In typical operation during a blaze here, one tanker is at the fire
scene, one is filling up at the water tank at the Village Office
complex, and one is en route from the tank to the fire scene.
But it takes a lot of water to fight some fires, particularly now that
so many mansion-sized homes are being built here. In some blazes, the
30,000-gallon tank at the Village Office Complex has been drained
completely.
If Chief Martinez can shorten the delivery distance between water tanks
and the fire scene, not only does the fire get extinguished quicker,
but fire insurance rates also drop significantly.
In late August, Martinez met with officials from the State Fire
Marshall’s Office to begin mapping out how to do that. Initially, they
determined that the greatest potential needs for fire-fighting water
are at Corrales Elementary School, Sandia View Academy and Academy
Furniture.
“All of those would require an awful lot of water if they caught fire,”
Martinez suggested. “For us to meet the needs for a fire at Academy
Furniture, for example, it would take greater than 1,000 gallons a
minute.
“I think we can show that we can deliver close to 200 gallons per minute, but it’s still hard to do that.”
He said the insurance rate-setting Insurance Service Office looks for a
fire department’s ability to deliver 250 gallons a minute for up to two
hours.
“If we could prove that, it would bring down fire insurance rates,” he said.
Without fire hydrants, the only way to make such an improvement is to
station water sources closer to areas where they are most needed.
“We’re working with the Planning and Zoning Office now to see if we can
identify areas where the Village owns property in areas from
which it would be convenient to shuttle water to fire scenes,” he added.
One such site where the Village owns land is at the top of Angel Road.
That two-acre parcel was identified years ago as a possible location
for a municipal well and water tank. It also has the advantage of
gravity delivery to one or more possible hydrant locations below.
Similarly, he has looked at installing one of the three or four new
well and tanks in the vicinity of Pueblo los Cerros, so that they Fire
Department would no longer have to rely on the private well there.
Besides municipally owned property along the escarpment, other publicly
owned parcels exist there, such as land belonging to the Southern
Sandoval County Arroyo Flood Control Authority.
Martinez is well aware that some homeowners may fight having a tall,
imposing water tower near their homes. But he said options exist that
could minimize the profile of such tanks.
The fire chief said he’s open to any ideas, including a combination of
water supply options such as wells and tanks in some locations, and
hydrants along some roads leading down from wells and tanks on the
escarpment.
He’s also hoping to draw fire-fighting water from a floating pump in the Corrales Riverside Drain at the end of Dixon Road.
Martinez has overseen major changes in the Corrales Fire Department
since he took over as chief. He now has a paid staff of seven, which
means two paid staffers on most shifts. Even so, he still relies on
volunteer fire-rescue responders, who now number about 18.
Martinez said the addition of paid staff has greatly improved response
times. “In after-hours situations when it was all-volunteers
responding, our average response time was 12-13 minutes,” he said. “Now
we’re looking at 4-5 minutes.” |
|
|
|
|
