The drought is taking it’s toll in New Mexico with wildfires, ranchers and farmers suffering severe hardship with some having to ship their cattle out of state, and water shortages. Magdalena, NM has just started to pump water from a well after being without water for weeks. Now New Mexico’s Capitol City has water concerns. The Santa Fe New Mexican is reporting that Santa Fe’s municipal reservoirs are only about one-third full, and water managers say they may run dry by mid-September as the city begins tapping the stored water this weekend to meet summer demand.
Rick Carpenter, the city’s water resources and conservation manager, said the city will start drawing from the McClure and Nichols reservoirs June 30 or July 1 to help maintain water pressure during periods of peak demand.
“We should be significantly higher than where we are now,” Carpenter said of water levels in the Santa Fe Canyon reservoirs east of the city. “Last year was rough, as well. This our third consecutive year of drought. That’s what is making it so tough.”
Carpenter said the city usually tries to save about 25 percent to 30 percent of the reservoirs’ capacity for the following year, but if conditions remains dry, particularly through the winter months, the city may head into the summer of 2014 with no water reserves in the canyon. In a good year, the city can draw as much as 40 percent of its water through the Santa Fe Canyon treatment plant, supplementing supplies from wells along the Santa Fe River, the recently built Buckman Direct Diversion that draws surface water from the Rio Grande and from the Buckman Well Field west of the city.
Carpenter said the canyon reservoirs will supply about half the 8 million gallons traveling through the city’s waterlines daily during the summer months.
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