Water problems in New Mexico (Albuquerque, Santa Fe: purchase, utilities, living)

[sjbasin]

To add to jazzlover's post...

Here are the two big dogs in water rights in my part of the state. The state engineer will also be the big dog in your part of the state, in addition to whomever is in charge of the local ditches/reservoirs/wells etc.

San Juan Water Commission Home Page

http://www.ose.state.nm.us/index.html

Rest assured that not a single drop of water falls in or passes through New Mexico that has not been spoken for. Water rights and allocation may be invisible to many, but nothing in New Mexico is exempt from it's influence, and nothing happens unless and until the concerns of water are first resolved.

[Tim Rankin]

There is no question that there will be water shortages in the future, especially as climatic conditions change. One of the predicted effects of the slightly warming temps we're experiencing is an increase in the size of the Hadley Circulation - essentially this will extend the dry areas of the southwest northwards, so the arid/semi-arid regions of the southwest will become much larger.

Personally I think the water-shortage hype is overdone, though. We've barely scratched the surface of what can be done in terms of conservation. When it comes down to it, most people across the southwest are water-wasters. All the water-guzzling lawns [aside form buffalo, grama, etc] could be converted to xeriscape. Most people take showers that are way too long. You don't have to flush after every pee-pee. Not letting the water run when you're doing dishes by hand, or brushing your teeth. Eliminating swimming pools & car washes, improving manufacturing processes to use less water, installing proper rainwater collections systems city-wide, etc.

I'm not saying we should start doing these things now, nor that the city/state should enforce them. I think it would be wise - but when it comes down to it, there are just too many people who would refuse to do their share. But these things could be done, and when they are, it will seriously reduce our water needs. There will come a time when water is expensive enough that residents will willingly do them.

[gitana]

I am an organic farmer living in northern Az. I have a well on my property, and my usage of water is totally unlimited.(of course i have been grandfathered in to this unlimited usage amount) This is not to say that i use an abundant amount, because i believe that water is a very, very precious resource. I like to plant drought tolerant and native plants on my farm and in my business as a landscape designer. But to the point, is water an issue in New Mexico? Of course it is! Because i happen to love the state of NM, and have spent the last few years dreaming of moving there and setting up a small farm, i have searched out land and properties state wide to try to find something that will work for me. It is very difficult to find an affordable piece of land where the water issue does not come into play. I realized that my search must include a parcel of land with an irrigation ditch that has transferable water rights with it. You must be careful when buying land, even with an irrigation ditch, because if the previous owners did not use their allocated water rights, it may be very difficult to reinstate the water rights. I have also discovered that the water in many places in NM has been severely polluted by runoff from the los alamos labs and nuclear testing around alamagordo. These pollutants don't just disappear overnite or with clorine treatment. i would never be able to truely say that the produce i grow is organic, much less would i ever drink this water and hope for good health. So with this all said, and my years of research and traveling in NM, i made the decision based upon what i learned about the water to just stay in arizona! And Thankfully, NM is less than a days drive away for when i really need my dose of Enchantment!

[Devin Bent]

Originally Posted by gitana

I am an organic farmer living in northern Az. I have a well on my property, and my usage of water is totally unlimited.(of course i have been grandfathered in to this unlimited usage amount) This is not to say that i use an abundant amount, because i believe that water is a very, very precious resource. I like to plant drought tolerant and native plants on my farm and in my business as a landscape designer. But to the point, is water an issue in New Mexico? Of course it is! Because i happen to love the state of NM, and have spent the last few years dreaming of moving there and setting up a small farm, i have searched out land and properties state wide to try to find something that will work for me. It is very difficult to find an affordable piece of land where the water issue does not come into play. I realized that my search must include a parcel of land with an irrigation ditch that has transferable water rights with it. You must be careful when buying land, even with an irrigation ditch, because if the previous owners did not use their allocated water rights, it may be very difficult to reinstate the water rights. I have also discovered that the water in many places in NM has been severely polluted by runoff from the los alamos labs and nuclear testing around alamagordo. These pollutants don't just disappear overnite or with clorine treatment. i would never be able to truely say that the produce i grow is organic, much less would i ever drink this water and hope for good health. So with this all said, and my years of research and traveling in NM, i made the decision based upon what i learned about the water to just stay in arizona! And Thankfully, NM is less than a days drive away for when i really need my dose of Enchantment!

This something of an overstatement. Even if we were to agree for purposes of discussion that there is radioactive runoff coming from these two sources, then we would still need to assume that it flows downhill. Any runoff from Los Alamos would flow down to the Rio Grande and then south in the Rio Grande. Alamagordo of course is very far south.

So there are large areas of the state that could not possibly be contaminated by run-off from these two sources. Now you might argue that the underground water is contaminated. But I live 20 miles east of Los Alamos, had the well tested thoroughly before I bought and found no trace of contamination. So it is very hard for me to imagine that it is turning up in Taos or Las Vegas.

[KimK]

Go to the museum on White Sands and read up on all the testing there not even including Trinity site. It is pretty scary and I took note as I live south, southeast of White Sands between it and the Rio Grande. It is actually quite a big area. White Sands alone is over 100,000 acres I think and it butts up to Fort Bliss Reservation which is at about 1 million acres right now. I don't even know the size of Holloman. And all that is north of the Rio Grande.

Also, I have often heard of contamination of ground water in NM and not entirely from these man made sources but also because this state has a lot of naturally occurring contaminants which I think arsenic is one (I could be wrong here).

I also read after the Los Alamos fire that testing revealed there was contamination of ground water in certain areas.

I don't think the poster was overstating his/her concerns too greatly here. I think this is an issue New Mexico has kept quiet about and I think there could be a little more investigation of this but as you all say, water is gold here and I don't think it would behoove the powers that be to start looking seriously at water quality when there is only so much of it to go around.

[Devin Bent]

Originally Posted by KimK

Go to the museum on White Sands and read up on all the testing there not even including Trinity site. It is pretty scary and I took note as I live south, southeast of White Sands between it and the Rio Grande. It is actually quite a big area. White Sands alone is over 100,000 acres I think and it butts up to Fort Bliss Reservation which is at about 1 million acres right now. I don't even know the size of Holloman. And all that is north of the Rio Grande.

Also, I have often heard of contamination of ground water in NM and not entirely from these man made sources but also because this state has a lot of naturally occurring contaminants which I think arsenic is one (I could be wrong here).

I also read after the Los Alamos fire that testing revealed there was contamination of ground water in certain areas.

I don't think the poster was overstating his/her concerns too greatly here. I think this is an issue New Mexico has kept quiet about and I think there could be a little more investigation of this but as you all say, water is gold here and I don't think it would behoove the powers that be to start looking seriously at water quality when there is only so much of it to go around.

Of course we may have contamination in certain areas of the state, some natural and some man-made, but that is no reason to go so far as to say that you can't grow organic vegetables in New Mexico because of the water contamination mentioned in the original message while you can in Arizona.

One way to look at water contamination from the two sources mentioned is to think that it would be radioactive and has been going on since the mid 1940s.

So, it has had plenty of time to show up in cancer statistics. Yet New Mexico has one of the lowest cancer rates in the US. See: State Cancer Profiles Home Page

Also radioactivity is something that you can easily test for. If you are concerned, then the means are available either to confirm or dispel those concerns. The technology for this testing is relative simple and has been widely available for many years. Geiger counters have been around for almost 100 years and you can find build-it-yourself instructions on-line
Build Your Own Geiger Counter

There is no way the government can hide a radioactive water supply when anybody can test for it. I tested my well twenty miles from Los Alamos and found nothing.

So yes, of course we have problems. But a radioactive water supply across the entire state? I will dismiss this as scare talk until someone shows me evidence.

[6 FOOT 3]

Well there are some positive things going on for the water woes that affect the New Mexico and the southwest. First ABQ is doing the San Juan/Chama project that will help restore the aquifer. Secondly the federal Government is building Desalination Plants in Alamogordo and North of Tularosa as supposedly there is 1,000 years of Brackish water deep underneath the entire region but it needs to have its salt content removed so hopefully these will pan out in the future for other areas of the state also.

[rainbowrabbits]

Hi Guys--- Check out Catron County Water Coalition This web site gives some of the past and future on the plan to pull water from there and sell it. Water is a very big issue I recently bought a property near Socorro with a well Have not had testing for quanity and quality done yet. I am remodeling the small house with all water catchment and looking into waterless toilets and greywater usage. I want to use water for a moderate vegetable garden so am willing to cut back on other uses.

[TKO]

Originally Posted by KimK

Go to the museum on White Sands and read up on all the testing there not even including Trinity site. It is pretty scary and I took note as I live south, southeast of White Sands between it and the Rio Grande. It is actually quite a big area. White Sands alone is over 100,000 acres I think and it butts up to Fort Bliss Reservation which is at about 1 million acres right now. I don't even know the size of Holloman. And all that is north of the Rio Grande.

Also, I have often heard of contamination of ground water in NM and not entirely from these man made sources but also because this state has a lot of naturally occurring contaminants which I think arsenic is one (I could be wrong here).

I also read after the Los Alamos fire that testing revealed there was contamination of ground water in certain areas.

I don't think the poster was overstating his/her concerns too greatly here. I think this is an issue New Mexico has kept quiet about and I think there could be a little more investigation of this but as you all say, water is gold here and I don't think it would behoove the powers that be to start looking seriously at water quality when there is only so much of it to go around.

The Rio Grande is in a completely different drainage than Trinity Site and WSMR. The later are in the Tularosa Basin which indicates that there is no outflow of this water. It sits underground under the missle range and Ft. Bliss. There is outflow of radioactive stuff from the canyons around Los Alamos but it settles in Cochiti Lake, it's heavy. There's naturally occurring uranium in NM (why they mined in Grants) and that is in the water around Cruces. The government says it's not enough to hurt us though. Everybody knows they're here to help so....

As for the sizes of WSMR, Ft. Bliss and Holloman here they are:

WSMR - 3,200 square miles which is 2,048,000 acres
Ft. Bliss - 1,875 square miles which is 1,200,000 acres
Holloman - 93.1 square miles which is 59,639 acres

All together that's 5,168 contiguous square miles of military installation. You can hide an awful lot of stuff on that much land. All of it sits east of the Organs/San Andres/Franklin Mountains. Most of it's in the Tularosa Basin but some is in the Pecos drainage. None of it drains in Rio Grande until the confluence of the Pecos well south of us.

[GregW]

I suspect the groundwater here in New Hampshire is more radioactive than most of New Mexico. The granite that out state is named for releases Radon (radioactive decay product of Uranium) into the water and the air. There was a big fuss about Radon remediation a few years ago that, in my humble opinion, was just a ploy to get frightened homeowners to spend money.

I expect we will be on a municipal water system when we relocate so I won’t be worrying about water quality. If the municipal water is loaded with minerals or other contaminants sufficient to affect the taste, I will either use bottled water for cooking or install a small treatment system. BTW – I started this career as a water quality specialist. I will probably refit the house to capture rainwater for gardening.

I agree that conservation is the first step toward efficient use of the water available. IMHO growing anything but native grass or rocks for a lawn is wasting water. Desalinization of underground brines is an expensive way to exploit a new source of water. I suspect the water under the Tularosa basin is effectively well-thinned gypsum sheetrock. Maybe they can sell the byproduct of the desalination.

Anyway, as far as water is concerned, use less, find more, and don’t worry about radiation.