Picacho Hills Utility Fined Over $1 Million

View from Picacho Hills (NewsNM Photo by Mel) 

Public Regulation Commissioners and the owner of a small water and waste water utility company near Las Cruces traded accusations of corruption in an emotionally-charged hearing this week in Santa Fe. In the end, the commission voted 3-0 to fine the small, 800-customer Picacho Hills Utility Company an unprecedented $1 million to $1.5 million for violations of PRC rules and orders, including alleged co-mingling of utility funds with owner Stephen Blanco’s other businesses, and failing to build a sewer discharge line the Commission had ordered Blanco to build. The case has involved allegations of embezzlement, witness intimidation, perjury, and a long-standing and unresolved threat to residents’ health: untreated sewer contaminating the affluent neighborhood’s golf course. Blanco has “violated almost every procedural order in this case, illustrating disregard and defiance of Commission authority,” according to a staff report by PRC attorney Ashley Schannauer. Read more here:

Picacho Hills Utility Fined Over $1 Million