Stingy weather deepens a long drought

THE SANTA FE AREA HAD A COUPLE OF DECENT SOAKINGS on the afternoons of May 21 and 22, but the rains did not noticeably improve a dismal water-supply scenario. Low water levels in the city’s two reservoirs, McClure and Nichols, point to weak flows in the Santa Fe River, which is normally bolstered by spring snowmelt runoff and rainfall. The annual Children’s Fishing Derby, scheduled for early June on the Santa Fe River, was canceled for lack of water. And it has been a while since city water managers have been able to enable the “living river” downtown.

The Santa Fe City Council adopted the Living River Ordinance in 2013. “The primary objective is to support our natural systems,” said Melissa McDonald, the city’s River andWatershed Coordinator. “It’s a desire to mimic natural cycles that would deliver water to green corridors. It’s recognizing that the river has an inherent worth within our community, so we’re trying to sustain the plants and animals. It certainly does have an economic benefit in that tourists and folks love a healthy river that they can walk along.”

McDonald said people have been “a little spoiled” by some higher river flows in recent years. When Santa Fe Water Division engineers built new intake structures on the reservoirs in 2013, 2014, and 2015, they were obliged to let more water through. “People really enjoyed seeing a flowing river. It was beautiful.

“Now we’re monitoring the intake at McClure, and we’re hopeful. We’re watching it very closely and we’re hoping thatwe can deliver a pulse,” McDonald said. “Riparian vegetation has network-type roots that really like to get soaked. It all really hinges on what we call the bypass constraint, which was established by the State Engineer. It was set up sowhat comes in from the snowpack and rain ismonitored and we can only release equal to or less than what is coming in.

“We work with theAcequia Association to sort of combine when their deliveries are, so they’ve adjusted their schedules. And we’re doing a low trickle flow, which is 0.15 cfs [cubic feet per second] for the rest of the time. We’re hoping that in June we will get some normal monsoons.”

During the last 20 years, the river’s average inflow to McClure Reservoir was 17 cubic feet per second, according to Alan G. Hook, the city’s water resources coordinator

PHOTOS BY PAUL WEIDEMAN The intake structure at Nichols Reservoir, with exposed water-level gauges, in mid-May