Manager’s report October 2024

Let me introduce myself, I am Carl Walker, the new Water Manager of Tranquillo Pines Water Users Co-op. I’m a long-time resident of the Raven Road area, and I moved from Albuquerque right after I graduated from Del Norte High School in 1973. The first few years my wife and I lived here we hand hauled water in 5-gallon containers. We used an outhouse. Fun times for a young couple. We have raised our 2 daughters here and now have grandkids visiting. We’ve been on the water system since 1982. As a member I attended almost all of the Annual Members meetings and always saw the importance of the water system to the community. I volunteered to serve on the TPWUC Board of Directors in 2016 and have been active in Board activities. At the beginning of the year the past manager, Lee Sweenhart, announced he was retiring on September 30, 2024. I was recruited to take the job. I had a 33-year career with UPS and retired in 2011. I was in operations and ran the New Mexico Feeder (Tractor-Trailer) division. I have a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Phoenix. I have had the pleasure of meeting and talking with several of the members this first month and a look forward to meeting the rest.

My first month on the job has been full of challenges and adventures. I started the first three days of the month attending New Mexico Rural Water Association’s Fall Water Conference in Las Cruces. This was very rewarding for me. I attended sessions such as Introduction to Water Systems, Distribution Systems and Ground Water / Hydrology along with several other sessions.                                                       These sessions furthered my education in all things water, and I gained some CEUs towards obtaining an operator certification.

The vendors present offered a great amount of information on the products necessary to keep a water system running. I had a good conversation with the rep from D & R Tank, a local Albuquerque company and I hope to explore a relationship with this local company. I met John Neely and his son Sean with Evergreen company base out of Mountainair. John is a sales representative for Subsurface Audio. I told him about our situation, and he scheduled an appointment with us to provide a demo of his LD-12 acoustic water leak detector. After his demo he offered to leave the unit with us to try it out on our own. We have tried it several times with inconclusive results.  

Water hauling has unfortunately become an everyday occurrence for our water system. This is the reality for the foreseeable future. The system needs to be supplemented with 4,500 to 5,500 gallons per day. We work towards keeping the amount of water deliveries to a minimum. Every day we look for leaks and ways to protect the aquafer. The pumps we use in the wells are variable speed which allows us to adjust the pumping rate to maximize the amount of water flow while protecting the water levels by not over pumping the wells.

I look forward to working for the membership and providing a path forward towards a quality water delivery system.

Carl Walker

Tranquillo Pines Water User Co-op

Water Manager

505-281-3668                Tpwuc1@gmail.com