Work could begin soon on a project designed to build new and crucial water supply lines to a large section of Fort Bliss.
The Department of Defense’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation has been awarded around $12.7 million to replace an aging collector line that provides all of the water for the base’s McGregor Range Complex.
That range, located to the northwest of Fort Bliss and spanning some 700,000 desert acres, is populated with 10 air defense missile firing ranges and some forty small arms ranges.
The Army activated the land formerly owned by local rancher Malcolm McGregor in the late 1950s with the construction of an initial series of barracks, and eventually office buildings, vehicle maintenance buildings, a large water tank, and service station.
Some of the land, according to the book Blazing Skies by author John Hamilton, was also used for the construction of “missile assembly and test facilities, missile fuel storage tanks, and launching sites.”
Altogether, it is expected to cost upwards of $25.4 million to build the water collector line. In a Defense Department press release it is noted that the project will “provide a reliable water supply to support critical training exercises, safety requirements, and installation maintenance.”
The $12.7 million grant has been awarded to the El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board and is part of a substantially larger $100 million effort on the part of the Local Defense Community Cooperation agency to fund military base infrastructure projects across the country.
October 31, 2024
By Garry Boulard
