Rains largely bypass city reservoirs
Watershed storage level at 26 percent capacity, but water managers hope for more precipitation
Torrential rains this week that turned Santa Fe streets into rushing rivers, damaging homes and public properties, requiring swift-water rescues and prompting the mayor to declare a state of emergency, did little to boost supplies in the municipal reservoirs.
Following months of warm, dry conditions that left only traces of snowpack in the mountains and just a trickle of spring runoff, the McClure and Nichols reservoirs in the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed have been far below average capacity, at just over a quarter.
Monday night’s storms, which rapidly dumped more than 3 inches of rain in the city, didn’t offer much help. The watershed received only about an inch.
“We did not get a lot of precipitation in the watershed,” said Rick Carpenter, the city’s acting Water Division director. “There is not a lot of inflow
in the reservoirs … so storage in the reservoirs did not go up, at least not significantly.”
If the downpours that flooded parts of Santa Fe on Monday had “occurred up in the reservoirs, we would have seen an increase,” Carpenter added. “I was hoping for more.”
In past decades, the reservoirs have provided about 40 percent of the city’s total water supply, Carpenter said. The city has three other sources: city wells, the Buckman Well Field and the Buckman Direct Diversion, which pulls flows from the Rio Grande. But the reservoir levels have been dropping without being replenished with vital spring runoff from the mountains or monsoon rains, Carpenter said.
Still, there may be a silver lining around the oncoming storm clouds.
Carpenter cited a recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center that forecasts at least a moderate El Niño weather pattern through the summer and fall. “So hopefully we will still have some monsoonal activity.”
While this week’s rains didn’t benefit the reservoirs, they were a boon for other lakes and waterways in the state, said Mary Perrea-Carlson, a spokeswoman with the Albuquerque office of the Bureau of Reclamation.
“We are happy with the recent rainfall around Santa Fe because it did help with water supply in the Middle Rio Grande,” Perrea-Carlson said.
Cochiti Lake, downriver from Santa Fe, saw increased flows Tuesday, as did Galisteo Creek, which is normally dry, she said.
Heron Lake, just north of Tierra Amarilla in Rio Arriba County, received about a 100 acre-foot increase from recent rains, Perrea-Carlson said, though nearby El Vado Lake didn’t see a rise. Both reservoirs get flows from the Chama River.
El Vado provides water for agriculture in the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, while Heron’s water has multiple uses, including agriculture, Perrea-Carlson said. The two lakes also are recreational sites with dwindling water levels.
Heron Lake is at about 34 percent of capacity, while the smaller El Vado Lake is at only about 5.5 percent of capacity.
“They are both going down because of releases,” Perrea-Carlson said, and “there isn’t much inflow now.”