San Juan-Chama bottled water faces problems

MAYOR CHAVEZ EXPRESSES HIS FRUSTRATION WITH THE WATER AUTHORITY ! HE'S UPSET ABOUT HOW THE AUT...  More »

MAYOR CHAVEZ EXPRESSES HIS FRUSTRATION WITH THE WATER AUTHORITY ! HE'S UPSET ABOUT HOW THE AUTHORITY HANDLED THE POSSIBLE CONTAMINATION OF BOTTLED WATER FROM THE SAN JUAN-CHAMA PROJECT. THE AUTHORITY RECENTLY STOPPED HANDING OUT 'SAMPLE' BOTTLES OF WATER... JEFF MAHER IS LIVE IN THE NEWSROOM. THE SAN JUAN- CHAMA WATER PROJECT STARTED DURING THE MAYOR'S FIRST TERM IN OFFICE. HE CALLS IT THE LIFEBLOOD OF THE CITY - BUT SAYS HE'S NOT HAPPY WITH HOW THE WATER UTILITY AUTHORITY IS HANDLING IT SO FAR. 'what we have is a problem and failure with accountability' MAYOR CHAVEZ IS LESS THAN PLEASED WITH THE WATER UTILITY AUTHORITY'S WORK LATELY. THE CONTAMINANTS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN FOUND IN THE BOTTLED WATER BEING USED FROM THE SAN JUAN- CHAMA PROJECT WAS THE LAST STRAW. 'when you charge elected officials with doing something, the nice thing about that system is you can fire us, how can you get rid of anybody on the water utility? It's just not going to happen' THE WATER UTILITY AUTHORITY HAS ALREADY HANDED OUT ABOUT 900,000 BOTTLES OF THE BOTTLED WATER TO THE PUBLIC - SO PEOPLE CAN SAMPLE THE FUTURE OF ALBUQUERQUE'S DRINKING WATER. BUT RECENTLY - BACTERIA WAS FOUND IN ONE BATCH OF BOTTLES. 'so we went to the bottler and asked him to take a look at his situation, and it was recently, as recent as yesterday where he admitted that he had a problem - and he's still trying to identify where it happened' WATER UTILITY OFFICIALS SAY IT WAS AN ISOLATED INCIDENT. THEY'VE CUT ALL TIES WITH THE BOTTLING COMPANY - AND WILL NOW BE PASSING OUT WATER TO PEOPLE ON THEIR OWN. 'all of that water will be in a tanker that we own, so we will be in complete control of this water from the time it leaves the river to the time it goes into our customers hands''that makes me nervous because it could be potentially dangerous to drink'WATER UTILITY OFFICIALS SAY THEIR WATER TESTING PLANT SHOWS THE WATER IS CLEAN - AND SAY IT WAS THE BOTTLES THAT HAD THE BACTERIA. MAYOR CHAVEZ WANTS AN INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS BEFORE THE PROJECT MOVES FORWARD. LIVE IN THE NEWSROOM. JEFF MAHER. EYEWITNESS NEWS FOUR.  « Less