In October, both the El Paso Water Company Board and Derby City Council (one in the same) took action to officially dissolve the company and streamline services through the city\u2019s water department moving forward.<\/p>\n
To acknowledge the work the El Paso Water Company took on to ensure the community had reliable water, Mayor Mark Staats officially proclaimed Nov. 30 as El Paso Water Company Day \u2014\u00a0the same day as its dissolution \u2014\u00a0at the latest City Council meeting.<\/p>\n
Per the proclamation, El Paso first acquired water rights for Derby in 1954 with wells west of the Arkansas River, \u201claying the foundation for reliable water service for the growing community of Derby.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThose investments played a key role in helping the city of Derby grow into the thriving city it is today,\u201d Staats said.<\/p>\n
On hand for the proclamation was Pat Swaney, who served as the president of El Paso Water Company at the time it was sold to the city in 1999 to ensure long-term growth and the reinvestment of water revenue into needed infrastructure \u2014\u00a0like the current plans for Derby\u2019s new water treatment facility.<\/p>\n
Swaney gave credit to both the council members of 1954 and initial company president Ray Reed for making a major decision. Needing both sewer and water service at the time, the council addressed the former while Reed helped with the latter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf one hadn’t have gone, the other one wouldn\u2019t have, and the city would\u2019ve still been sitting there without sewer and water,\u201d Swaney said. \u201cThat\u2019s what really started the growth was when they got sewer and water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beginning with El Paso Water Company in the mid-1970s, Swaney served in various roles for nearly a quarter century \u2014\u00a0including reading and installing water meters, back when that meant about 20 new meters per year.<\/p>\n
That was when Derby had the one water tower with a 100,000 gallon tank, but the foundation of the El Paso Water Company helped growth quickly take off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started, there were probably 6,000 people in town and now there\u2019s probably 26,000,\u201d Swaney said. \u201cWhen I started there were four districts plus commercial that you read, now there\u2019s probably 22.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now Derby has water rights to pump 700 million gallons annually, with all meters being read electronically.<\/p>\n
But in pursuing its new water treatment facility, the city is going back to some of those original wells to help continue expanding local water service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve kind of come full circle since 1954,\u201d Staats said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In October, both the El Paso Water Company Board and Derby City Council (one in the same) took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[35688,138,140,139],"class_list":["post-70716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-derby_news","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70716","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=70716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}