{"id":292350,"date":"2026-05-14T05:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/292350\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T05:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:00:18","slug":"el-paso-water-cement-lake-levels-pose-no-community-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/292350\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso Water: Cement Lake levels pose no community danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM<\/a>) \u2013 El Paso Water officials say there was never any danger to the community after concerns surfaced over rising water levels at Cement Lake, despite reports that construction crews had noticed elevated levels before the utility purchased the property.<\/p>\n

El Paso Water President John Balliew said contractors informed the previous property owner about the rising water shortly before El Paso Water acquired the site in April. Balliew said the utility was aware of the elevated water levels before the purchase but did not see it as a cause for alarm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was never any danger to the community,\u201d Balliew said. \u201cIt was just the roadways.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Balliew, officials believed the lake\u2019s spillway system could handle the water levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with a pipe\u00a0spillway\u00a0is it\u2019s subject to plugging if there\u2019s trash or debris or floating sticks or whatever that come in over the top of the reservoir,\u201d said Balliew. \u201cWe\u2019ll put in a side channel and then we\u2019ll restore the dam to its original condition and it should be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018Significant progress\u2019 made at Cement Lake; roads reopen <\/a><\/p>\n

The utility purchased the property as part of the city\u2019s open space preservation efforts. Balliew said Cement Lake had previously been identified in the city\u2019s open space master plan as land worth protecting. Funding for the purchase was part of the Storm Water Utility when it it was created in 2008, allocating 10% of stormwater utility revenues toward open space projects.<\/p>\n

Balliew addressed reporters questions about whether the dam had been inspected before the purchase. Balliew said no specific dam inspection was conducted, only standard environmental assessments typically done during real estate transactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dam had been there for more than 100 years with several different owners,\u201d Balliew said. \u201cAt no point in time was there any indication that anything was wrong with the dam.\u201d<\/p>\n

EP Water monitoring potential dam breach risk at Cement Lake <\/a><\/p>\n

El Paso Water said it plans to explore possible public access and recreational use of the property while preserving it as open space.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) \u2013 El Paso Water officials say there was never any danger to the community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[99570,138,140,139,5768,46703,106838,35723],"class_list":["post-292350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-cement-lake","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-el-paso-water","tag-john-balliew","tag-rising-water","tag-water-levels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}