Thin Ice: Santa Fe’s Water Supply in Changing Times

By Karen Armijo and Sarah Baldwin

Agua es vida is a platitude here in New Mexico. Many of us nativos/norteños have been raised to value water as the lifeblood of our communities. It flows through our acequias, is part of our folklore, and brings our communities together, in times of plenty and especially in times of drought. Water sustains our ecosystems, our bodies, and our economic well-being.So where does Santa Fe’s water supply come from? For centuries the Santa Fe Watershed was our sole source of surface water. Since 2011 we have also obtained surface water from the San Juan–Chama Project, in which Colorado River Basin drainage water is tunneled through the Continental Divide to New Mexico, held at Heron Lake, and then channeled via the Rio Chama to the Rio Grande and the Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD) facility, owned jointly by the city and the county.In addition to these sources, groundwater is collected in well fields in the city and at Buckman Well Field, northwest of the city. Since increasing our surface water supply with BDD, the city and the county have determined to sustain groundwater supplies primarily for droughts and emergences.How much of our supply comes from each of these sources varies from month to month, depending on a variety of factors. In an average year, the municipal watershed provides about 40 percent of our water.First dammed in 1881, the Santa Fe River is now an intermittant stream with two perennial stretches. Starting in the upper reaches of the watershed, in the Sangre de Cristos, it runs 46 miles to the confluence with the Rio Grande, at Cochiti Lake. From its headwaters the river collects additional runoff as it moves downstream toward our two manmade reservoirs, McClure and Nichols. Here water is stored for delivery to four acequias and for treatment at the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant. When supplies are adequate, water is also released back into the river, as provided by the city’s Living River ordinance.To replenish these sources, we need precipitation, always scarce and increasingly unpredictable in our part of the world. Santa Fe receives an average of 12 to 14 inches of annual precipitation, the lower number reflecting more recent trends. The snow season is November through April, with the largest snowfalls in January and February. Melting snow generates the majority of river discharge and creates recharging stream conditions in the upper watershed. In July and August Santa Fe often receives hard and fast rainstorms, accounting for most of our annual precipitation. In recent years the monsoon season has been starting later and extending into October.Santa Fe’s total precipitation for 2017 was near average, but the weather patterns that produced it were out of sync with long-term patterns. Spring snowmelt and subsequent runoff started early and were well below normal for the seventh year in a row, following climate-change predictions. Above normal temperatures and a dry and windy spring quickly reduced the snowpack. Monsoons arrived late and produced heavy rains, which broke the meteorological drought that had been occurring.Then, in 2018, an exceedingly dry and warm winter followed by a typically dry spring and early summer threw us back into severe drought. Resevoirs were near empty. Intense, flood-causing monsoons arrived late and brought precipitation for the year back up, but the resevoirs still have a lot of catching up to do.This season we’re off to a strong start. According to a recent article in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Seton Station has measured 21.5 inches of snow since October, as compared to 3.3 inches over the same period last year. The article notes that this is the most snow for the period since 2013. It also notes, however, that because of ongoing drought, moisture-deleted soil will probably absorb much of this year’s snowmelt. While this is good news for the health of our land and our gardens, it means we may not have as much runoff as we’d like or expect.We don’t know how much precipitation any given year will bring. What we do know is our population is growing, and climate predictions are for hotter and dryer times: in other words, more people, less water. Through active conservation efforts, the citizens of Santa Fe have reduced their water use from 168 gallons per capita per day (GCPD) in 1995 to 90 GCPD in 2017, making the city a conservation leader in the Southwest. Incentives such as rebates and tiered pricing have helped. But city planners indicate more efforts are needed if we’re going to sustain our community into the future.Recommended Reading:• Albuquerque Journal, Santa Fe Water Supply Study: A dry future? by T.S. Last• deBuys, William. A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest (Oxford, 2013)• City of Santa Fe, Water Conservation and Drought Management Plan (2015)• New Mexico In Depth, Climate Change: Rio Grande 101, by Laura Paskus• The Reporter, In Deep Water, by Laura Paskus• Santa Fe Watershed Association and City of Santa Fe, The Santa Fe Blue Pages (downloadable file)• Sustainable Santa Fe, Water• U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, City of Santa Fe, and Santa Fe County, Santa Fe Basin Study: Adaptations to Projected Changes in Water Supply and Demand (2015)