Chunky Water

One day in this blog, we will explain why we sometimes refer to the City of Albuquerque, NM, as the C of Q. For now, please forgive us when we lapse into this sarcastic shorthand.

For years, C of Q has paid dearly and had the rights to water that is piped over the continental divide from the Colorado watershed to the Rio Grande watershed. More recently, C of Q had begun a project to actually make that water, now flowing down the Rio Grande, the source of part of its drinking water.

As an adjunct to getting that water into the system, a pilot plant has been built to suck it out of the sandy river and process it. Somewhere during the project, the city was forced by circumstances to turn the water utility over to a City-County authority - the ABCWUA.

To get residents used to drinking the crap from the river, the ABCWUA started bottling it and giving it away for free. Here, drink this!

So far, so good, except there is chunky stuff in the bottled water.

One of our local investigative news channels thinks it's not OK. But the attitude of ABCWUA so far has been, hey you have probably consumed worse. Swallow hard and enjoy.

When pressed, it was decided that ABCWUA would do its own independent testing. If the chunks ain't toxic or disease-causing, . . . well, Here, drink this!

The jury is still out on whether the pilot plant will work or leak once it's on line anyway. The Mayor of Q has threatened to shut off any river water that gets into the city and pump through the wells, most of which are within city limits but now belong to ABCWUA.