Water Treatment Facility

How It Works

The City of Bloomfield watershed is in the Vallecito / Pagosa area, which feeds three rivers:

San Juan
Los Pinos
La Piedra

These rivers empty into Navajo Lake, where controlled releases managed by the Bureau of Reclamation are discharged into the San Juan River.

Downstream approximately six miles, water from the San Juan is diverted to the Citizens Ditch, and is then transported to the Aragon Reservoir, which is owned by the City of Bloomfield.

This reservoir is a holding lake where water is released into an 18-inch water line to the City’s surface water treatment facility.

The Trident HS system is designed with four barriers:

Barrier 1: Consists of a tube clarifier section for bulk solids removal with external solids recirculation for improved clarity and chemical reduction.

Barrier 2: Is an up-flow adsorption clarifier that uses patented scarified buoyant media.

Barrier 3: Is a mixed media filter.

Barrier 4: Is UV disinfection.

The plant introduces sodium hypochlorite into the system for disinfection and to maintain a residual in the distribution system.

This is a two-tank system, with each tank treating 1,050 gpm (a total capacity of 3 million gallons per day), which allows plant redundancy for dialing down the flow as demand dictates or to shut down one treatment train for any needed maintenance. The plant produces an average of about one million gallons per day.

Tours

Tours are available to the public. Please call and schedule.

Staff & Awards

Staff
Four, full-time operators ensure that quality water is delivered for both domestic use and fire suppression. We pride ourselves on our product, which is overseen by the New Mexico Environment Department.

Awards
Our plant is rated a III level system by the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission and has won numerous Good Housekeeping Awards, including the Max Summerlot Operator Excellence Award.