By Jason Groves
Las Cruces Sun News
May 13, 2025
The Santa Teresa Industrial Park arsenic treatment facility failed a voluntary arsenic test in April.
The facility, operated by the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, was one of three CRRUA water treatment facilities tested. The Sunland Park and Santa Teresa Community facilities each tested below the Environmental Protection Agency maximum contaminate level for arsenic of 10 parts per billion (ppb), according to a CRRUA news release.
The utlity has been conducting voluntary monthly testing of its treatment facilities since February 2024 through Eurofins Environment Testing; an independent water lab certified by the New Mexico Environment Department. According to CRRUA, the Industrial Park facility sample was collected on April 23 and showed 12 ppb.
CRRUA executive director Juan Crosby insisted the water was safe to drink.
“When we received the test results for the Santa Teresa Industrial ATF, we immediately implemented protocols and standard operating procedures (SOPs) we initiated in partnership with NMED, and adjusted treatment that lowered the arsenic level to below the MCL,” Crosby said in a news release. “At no time was the public health at risk. The water continues to meet NMED and EPA standards and is safe to consume.”
Crosby said CRRUA will conduct additional tests on May 13 and May 20.
While the failed test was a voluntary test, CRRUA has passed NMED’s 2025 first quarter arsenic test and has passed four quarterly tests by the state.
The utility recently announced it had addressed all but three deficiencies identified by the NMED in a 2023 sanitary survey.
Yet Sunland Park and Santa Teresa residents continue to express concerns over water quality.
In a May 9 letter to the CRRUA board, the Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County called for the establishment of a citizen advisory committee that consists of Santa Teresa and Sunland Park community members rather than CRRUA officials or staff.
“The Committee serves to aid and ensure CRRUA meets its public duty to provide consumers with clean, safe, and affordable water and wastewater services,” the letter read.
“However, if the Committee is primarily composed of CRRUA’s own staff, Board members, and supporters, it is highly unlikely that the Committee can effectively fulfill its purpose and address the needs of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa community members. To create a Citizen Advisory Committee that is not reflective of the communities CRRUA serves is, instead, yet another way in which CRRUA continues to fail to honestly build trust with the communities CRRUA has historically and continuously harmed.”
Read more.