Santa Fe outdoor water restrictions take effect

Dry conditions drive city to alert residents about rules

Annual outdoor water restrictions kicked in for Santa Feans on Wednesday, and a City Council committee got a worrisome forecast on water supply for the summer months.

City residents can now only water outside three times a week — two times a week is preferred by city officials — and must do so before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. Restrictions will remain in place until Oct. 31.

The restrictions are part of city law and automatically go into effect each year.

However, with such dry conditions this year, city officials are making an extra push to remind people of what they shouldn’t be doing.

City water conservation manager Laurie Trevizo said “we are trying to be really direct with what the rules are” this year.

The Santa Fe area is “going into a third year of drought after the two driest and hottest years on record,” a city

news release noted.

Watering in the morning or evening is more optimal for plants, offering less evaporation, Trevizo said.

Other restrictions include requiring that outdoor swimming pools be covered when not in use; washing cars once a month with a hose that shuts off automatically; not using hoses or power washers to clean sidewalks, driveways, patios or other hard outdoor surfaces; hand-watering with a hose that automatically shuts off; and no “overhead” watering of trees and bushes.

Fines can be up to $200 for people who violate the restrictions.

Wednesday evening, Rick Carpenter, the city’s resources and conservation manager, gave the council’s Public Utilities Committee an update on water supply issues for the coming summer.

Carpenter said reservoir levels are low — at 34 percent of capacity, compared to a fiveyear average of 66 percent for this time of year — snowpack is low and the Rio Grande flow is low.

But he said the city will be able to meet demand with its mix of water resources, which include San Juan-Chama water diverted from the Rio Grande by the Buckman Direct Diversion facility, the Santa Fe River reservoirs at the end of Canyon Road and well fields in town and in the Buckman area near the Rio Grande.

Rio Grande flows could be so low this year because of the continuing drought conditions that there may be no way to deliver the San Juan-Chama water downstream from reservoirs like Heron Lake, Carpenter said. “Just because we call for San Juan-Chama water (which comes from the Colorado River basin) doesn’t mean we’ll get it,” Carpenter said.

The city has rights to take up to 5,400 acre-feet from its reservoirs, but will probably only get 1,200-1,300 acre-feet this year, he reported.

If the surface water sources do in fact turn out to be severely low this year, the city will “use a lot of well water,” Carpenter said. The city has been “resting” the Buckman well field since early 2010, he noted.

More severe water-use restrictions kick in if demand for water starts to take too much of supply. If the supply is less than 80 percent of unrestricted demand, the most severe restrictions — including a ban on all plant watering other than at parks, school athletic fields and roadside landscaping — would be implemented.

For more information on the water restrictions, visit www.santafenm.gov/ waterconservation.