Puerto Tank Protest Growing
An uprising by Puerto del Sol golfers over the imminent devastation of their golf course has led water officials to propose rerouting underground pipes to serve a massive above-ground water tank to be built there.
“Instead of ripping through five or six fairways with 30-foot trenches, they’ll be skirting the edge of the course,” said Puerto operator Tony Hidalgo Jr. A map of the tank’s location and routing of pipe can be found here.
The tank project, first reported by Sun Country Golf, led the PDS men’s and women’s golf associations to approach two TV stations, which reported how trenching would lay waste to the course when construction starts in October. See KRQE’s Tim Maestas’ story on the controversy here.
The mammoth nature of the tank project was under-reported by us when we first broke this story. The actual capacity of the tank is 2 million gallons. The 125-foot diameter tank would stretch from rough line to rough line in the area between Holes 3 and 4, and cut into 30 yards of No. 3 fairway, exaggerating the dogleg.
The tank is being built to hold a non-potable mix of recycled industrial water and water piped uphill from the Rio Grande, to be used to irrigate Isotopes Park and other Southeast Heights sports venues, including the golf course itself. In the long run, the presence of the tank will cut Puerto’s water cost by 20 percent.
At the same time, Wayne Brooks, president of the PDS men’s association, told KRQE that in a year or two, people will forget exactly why PDS is losing money, as people stay away and play somewhere else.
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