City leaders in Guadalupe have declared a public facilities emergency after a partial failure in the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system: the technology that monitors the city’s water and sewer operations.
During the Sept. 23 council meeting, City Attorney Philip Sinco explained the action was needed because the system “could fail at any time” and there was no way to measure when another breakdown might occur. The emergency declaration allows the city to bypass competitive bidding and hire a contractor immediately to replace the system.
Public Works Director David Trujillo told councilmembers the system, first installed nearly 20 years ago, suffered a software failure in August.
“The SCADA system is what monitors our flows, our pressures, our chloramine injection,” Trujillo said. “Right now, we’re limping along.”
Without SCADA, staff are forced to rely on alarms and daily manual checks.
“We know that we’re providing safe water right now because we are verifying everything manually. However, we don’t have the automated way to know. Everything is subject to failure. The people, the data,” Trujillo cautioned.
Even in the event of a total system crash, Trujillo said the community’s water supply would not be interrupted.
“Even if we have a full SCADA system failure, the system doesn’t stop working. All that would do is make it to where we have to run 24-hour operations at the water plant,” he said.
Residents say water reliability is critical in Guadalupe, where both families and agriculture depend on it. “Water quality is paramount here. We have a lot of agriculture, and everybody drinks the water,” resident Tom Stewart said.
Another resident, Frank Marmolejo, added: “Water is a basic need. As long as it’s being run by competent staff, then I think we’re okay.”
City officials estimate repairs will cost about $209,000 and take 17 to 24 weeks to complete . In the meantime, Trujillo reassured the public: “It’s a computer failure, not a water failure”.
