Horacio Palacios wasn’t looking to get into the water world right out of high school.

“It kind of fell in my lap,” recalls Palacios, a water production operator with 15 years’ experience at Las Cruces Utilities. The payoff was a satisfying career in which he has made his mark. He was named 2022 Outstanding Operator of the Year by the New Mexico Water and Wastewater Association.

Palacios was born in Phoenix; his family then moved about 400 miles east to Las Cruces. “I pretty much grew up here and have stayed in Las Cruces my whole life,” he says. “My family is real close. I was raised by my mom, my grandma and my aunt. Las Cruces is a little town where everybody’s really, really nice and helpful.”

Palacios attended Mayfield High School in Las Cruces and graduated in 2006. “I had planned on going to college to be a firefighter,” he says. “But right out of high school I found that I was going to have a child.”

LEARNING THE ROPES

Faced with supporting a family, Palacios immediately started looking for work. “I had a buddy who was in Las Cruces Utilities,” he says. “I applied for a job there. The interview and hands-on field test went well, so they hired me.

“And so pretty much right out of high school, I jumped into the water world, not really knowing what I was getting into. Fortunately, a lot of the guys I started off with were older. They helped me out by showing me how to run a water treatment facility from the ground up.”

His first job was in water distribution, which he did for 10 years: “Throughout that time I was testing for the New Mexico water operator certification levels, of which there are four. So in those 10 years, I earned my certifications as I worked my way up from a crewman, a back operator, and a serviceman, all the way to a crew leader.

“I chased those water levels until I got my Level Four. Then a position opened in water production, which is where I am now. I’m a water operator and pretty much in charge of the wells, the booster pumps, the pressure regulating valves and disinfecting the water.”

AQUIFER SYSTEM

Las Cruces Utilities produces 6.5 billion gallons of drinking water annually, pumped from the Mesilla and Jornada Bolsons deep aquifers. To run the system, the utility employs 10 booster stations, 13 storage tanks, 30 regulating valves, 30 wells and more than 600 miles of mains.

“We don’t have any surface water around here,” Palacios says. “We pump the water out of the ground and hit it with chlorine gas. And there are some wells that we inject PO4 polyphosphate to control iron and manganese and minimize red water. We pump about 28-30 mgd during summer. During winter, it goes down to 15 to 16 mgd.”

Las Cruces also operates the Jornada Water System, which it acquired in 2016. That system produces 670 million gallons per year; it has eight booster stations, 12 storage tanks, four regulating valves, 14 wells and more than 90 miles of mains.

The majority of the pumps used in Las Cruces’ wells are a mix of vertical turbines and submersibles. The smaller pumps move about 80-115 gpm, while the larger pumps deliver up to 3,000 gpm.

“US Motors [Nidec Motor Corp.] is the brand we use for our vertical turbines ranging from 15 hp to 700 hp,” Palacios notes. “A majority of our submersibles are Grundfos. Our pressure relief valves are mainly Cla-Val. We currently have two wells that run off Caterpillar natural gas engines.”

This utility is also charged with managing a Superfund site. “We pump that water out and air-strip it to separate [the tetrachloroethylene] from the water,” says Palacios. “Two wells currently pump to our Superfund aeration plant. Well 27 runs 24/7 at 235 gpm and Well 18 runs twice a week for six hours at 86 gpm.”

“We can only pump so much water out because we’re just trying to skim the top of that aquifer.” The TCE has an oil base, so it’s floating on top of the aquifer. “It’s a slow process, but the plume from the time we started is starting to shrink, so we are cleaning that water.”

JOB SATISFACTION

Las Cruces Utilities has eight operators to run the water system, and most have Level 4 (highest) certification. “We take turns being on call,” Palacios says “Our system is controlled and monitored by SCADA software, so the calls can come in at any time for high tank levels, customer tests for chlorine polyphosphate and water hardness.

“As for our crew, it’s a great bunch of guys, a lot of old-timers. I started off with a lot of these guys in water distribution. Over the years everybody went and got certifications, and we all ended up in water production.”

The team includes Level 4 operators Joshua Mort, Luis Arellano, Steve Ascarate, Gino Sepulveda and Ron Acosta, and Level 3 operators Ernesto Valenzuela and Chuck O’Donnell. Ronald Borunda is water deputy director, Paul Gamboa is supervisor, and Jacob Cabrales is project coordinator. The electricians are Eric Quiz, Adrian Valles and Diego Caro. Water production labor is performed by Andres Flores and Jesus Baca.

Palacios cites no major crises in operating the system; it’s just a case of keeping up with ever-increasing customer demand. “Las Cruces is growing quite a bit, and so we’re constantly trying to stay ahead of where we need to put wells and tanks and boost the water up, especially during the summers. It can get pretty hot over here in Las Cruces.”

MEETING DEMAND

“Summer is our busy season. Usually during the winters we try to do our maintenance. That way, come summertime, we’re ready to roll and we don’t have too many issues with a lot of our wells and boosters running 24/7.”

The best part of his work? “I really enjoy service calls when I go out and talk to someone, knowing that I started from installing and went all the way up to pumping water and disinfecting it,” Palacios says.

“When a customer has a question, I’m pretty confident I can give them the correct answer. As well, we have a water conservation display that we show to school kids to explain how our system works and where our water comes from. It’s a model diorama with the aquifer, pumps and pipelines, all showing how our drinking water gets from the ground to their homes and schools. It really opens their eyes.”

Palacios appreciated winning Operator of the Year: “It was a little gathering here at one of our local hotels,” he says. “I was able to invite my sons and my wife, and they were there to see me receive the plaque. It was a really great feeling because my two sons and my wife were always there watching me study throughout the night to earn my certifications.

“For every level I passed, they were always with me when I would receive that certification in the mail. That’s why it was really nice for them to watch me receive the award. They’ve experienced the journey with me from start to finish.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Having started with Las Cruces right out of high school, Palacios only has nine more years to qualify for full retirement. When that happens at the ripe age of 44, he may head off to a larger water utility, or perhaps open his own water testing business.

For now he is in no rush to leave. “The city has been great to me,” he says. “I started off at 18 years old. It has been a great and fun career ever since I started. It has never really felt like work since I started in the water world. I’ve never had a day where I’ve woken up, maybe after a late-night main break, and I didn’t feel like getting up.”