10 years of San Juan-Chama, aquifer up 50 feet

Earlier this year the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority received the highest honor bestowed by the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, the Platinum Award for Utility Excellence. AMWA cited the utility’s focus on delivering affordable, high-quality water while tackling resource management challenges like the preservation of our local aquifer.

Ten years ago this month we took a huge step in meeting that latter challenge headon, with the start-up of the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project. At a cost of more than $450 million, the project enabled the community to divert and consumptively use surface water imported from the Colorado River basin. This was water purchased decades ago from the federal government in a deal struck by the Albuquerque

City Commission. It had been coming downstream for years — but we hadn’t been drinking it.

That changed in 2008. And in the 10 years since the project came online, it has provided a growing proportion of the community’s water supply. It now delivers about 70 percent of the municipal drinking water for Albuquerque and Bernalillo County and has reduced groundwater pumping by a corresponding amount. Aquifer levels, after years of decline, are now up by 50 feet or more in some locations around the Water Authority’s service area.

The project’s anniversary has received little media attention, presumably because there’s not much controversy here: The project is working as planned and delivering on its promise of aquifer rebound.

But just because it’s working doesn’t mean we should take it for granted. After all, the drinking water project was one of the biggest public works endeavors in the state’s history. Among other things, it required construction of:

38 miles of new transmission pipeline An intake facility, fish passage and adjustable diversion dam on the Rio Grande near the Alameda Bridge

A 10,000-square-foot pump station near the Alameda Open Space to transmit diverted surface water for treatment

A 110-acre, $160 million surface-water treatment plant with two 50-million-gallon settling ponds

As part of the project, the Water Authority also undertook habitat restoration work along the Albuquerque stretch of the Rio Grande, financing the planting of some 11,000 trees and creating side channels and bays for fish spawning.

Beyond the physical components of the project, we mustn’t forget the years of planning that went into it. Or the political courage it took to ask local residents to finance it. Or the countless hours spent in educating the public about the necessity of it and obtaining the permits and legal decisions required to build it.

Now, 10 years after its dedication, the project is a key component of a conjunctive resource management plan intended to secure the community’s water future for many decades to come. Conservation, re-use and aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) are also important parts of the strategy, which the Water Authority calls Water 2120. More information about Water 2120, including a link to a short video on the plan, can be found on the Water Authority’s website at www.abcwua.org. It’s worth watching. Just like it’s worth remembering where our drinking water comes from, and how hard this community — and the Water Authority — have worked to keep it flowing.