Lovetro replaces Haney as PSWID chairman

(Editor's note: So that the Roundup will run his Letters to the Editor, we can only tell you the following update on the "doin's" of the Pine Strawberry Water Improvement District (PSWID) is provided by Water for Pine Strawberry. Wouldn't want to get in the way of both sides having a say in the local media.  Sigh.)

Pine received 6.8” of rain in July which was well above normal. See the rain chart for July at http://www.waterforpinestrawberry.com/Hydrology.htm .

Next regular PSWID Meeting: Saturday August 21, 2010 at 1 p.m. at the Pine Cultural Center

Election of Board Chairman
Mr. Gary Lovetro was elected as chairman of the board, replacing Mr. Bill Haney in that position.

Strawberry Hollow Well
The board voted to buy the Strawberry Hollow SH3 well. The terms of the deal that were made public are:
i. Purchase price of $450,000.
ii. $10,000 non-refundable deposit.
iii. Ninety days to obtain financing
iv. Good faith agreement to deliver water to each other at wholesale rates if water is available. Strawberry Hollow will not have first rights to SH3 water as earlier proposed. Expectation that PSWID will provide backup if SH2, which provides water to Strawberry Hollow, goes down.
v. PSWID allowed to use 140,000 gallon storage tank, but will not own it. The SH2 well and the SH3 well can feed the storage tank. SH3 is also connected to PSWID’s 300,000 gallon storage tank, and as a result the 140,000 and 300,000 gallon tanks are now connected to each other.
The SH3 well has been pumping 27 gallons per minute 24/7 since June 15th. It was said that the facilities are in place to increase that to 60 gallons per minute if a bigger pump is installed.
Comment: The $450,000 is more than twice the $210,000 of the appraisal. The disparity between the two will be discussed in a future email.

Milk Ranch Well
Board directed the interim General Manager, Mr. Dennis Burrel, to proceed with the list of activities that he had outlined for continuing the evaluation of the Milk Ranch well. In June, the pump in the well failed for the second time after a short period of operation. With it failing again, the board had decided that they should leave it alone until a District Engineer was hired.

The pump will be pulled from the well and the cause of its failure will be determined. Once the pump is repaired and reinstalled, the well will be run for 30 days to determine the filtration that is required.
It was stated that $117,000 has been spent on the Milk Ranch well to date.

Board Candidates for November
According to the Gila County Elections department the following people filed to run for the board in November:
Mr. Ron Calderon
Mr. Michael Claxton
Mr. Michael Greer
Mr. Howard Matthews
Mr. Marvin Mortensen

This update is from the group Water For Pine Strawberry. We will provide an update after each of the PSWID meetings with a summary of what the board did, additional facts that are relevant to what went on, and some commentary.  Updates on earlier meetings are available on our website: www.WaterForPineStrawberry.com .

Water For Pine Strawberry is a group of residents concerned about the communities' water issues and how they can best be resolved. Visit our web site, www.WaterForPineStrawberry.com, for more information. The website for PSWID is www.pswid.org .

Clarifications can be submitted by anyone who is explicitly named, implicitly identifiable, or a board member to items in this update. Clarifications will be posted on our website. We reserve the right to post a response. Clarifications must deal with the topics discussed in the update that relate to the individual or the board. They must be in family friendly language and be non-abusive. When the clarification is accepted, it will be posted to the website and notice of that posting will be added to the next update.