The city of Santa Fe announced Friday it is sending water aid to Las Vegas, N.M., following flash floods that impacted the smaller city’s water supply earlier this week.
A marque reading “We rise we heal we overcome” can be seen at the historic Serf Theatre in Las Vegas, N.M., this week. Members of the community face water restrictions due to issues at a water treatment plant caused by last week’s flooding.
Kevin Murphy struggles May 27, 2023, to start the trolling motor on his sail boat on Storrie Lake near Las Vegas, N.M. The city of Santa Fe announced Friday it will supply water to Las Vegas until it is able to treat water from the Gallinas River and Storrie Lake.
The city of Santa Fe announced Friday it is sending water aid to Las Vegas, N.M., following flash floods that impacted the smaller city’s water supply earlier this week.
Courtesy city of Santa Fe
A marque reading “We rise we heal we overcome” can be seen at the historic Serf Theatre in Las Vegas, N.M., this week. Members of the community face water restrictions due to issues at a water treatment plant caused by last week’s flooding.
Kevin Murphy struggles May 27, 2023, to start the trolling motor on his sail boat on Storrie Lake near Las Vegas, N.M. The city of Santa Fe announced Friday it will supply water to Las Vegas until it is able to treat water from the Gallinas River and Storrie Lake.
The city of Santa Fe is ramping up water production at the Buckman Direct Diversion in order to send water to Las Vegas, N.M., following flash flooding that sent ash and silt from the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burn scar into the city’s drinking water supply.
“We’re looking at half a million gallons per day in assistance to them, and that’s something we can comfortably produce,” Water Division Director Jesse Roach said Friday.
Half a million gallons per day is about 5% of the city’s current total water demand, he added. When both the Buckman Direct Diversion and the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant are at peak production, the city has the capacity to treat 25 million gallons of water per day.
Santa Fe announced in a Friday news release it had joined the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority and the city of Santa Rosa in providing emergency water to Las Vegas.
“Our neighbors are in trouble, and we need to help them,” Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber said in a statement. “That’s what neighbors do. We’re all part of the same community, the same family. We want to do our part to help Las Vegas through this challenging time.”
Public Utilities Director John Dupuis said the city has been delivering water to Las Vegas since Wednesday. The water is being metered, and Las Vegas is being charged $6.06 per 1,000 gallons delivered, the city’s lowest rate.
Heavy rains over the burn scar last week carried debris, ash and silt into the Gallinas River, polluting it to the point that it could no longer be treated by Las Vegas’ water treatment plant and prompting some evacuations.
A flood watch is in place for the region from Saturday afternoon through Saturday evening, according to the National Weather Service, with the potential for runoff to cause more flooding in the area downstream of the burn scar.
Las Vegas city officials have pleaded with residents this week to conserve water, and authorities including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard have helped distribute drinking water and sandbags.
In a post on its official Facebook page Thursday about a donation of sandbags from Española, the city of Las Vegas thanked surrounding communities for their support.
“It is incredible to have the support and outreach of all of our neighboring counties during this difficult time,” the post read. “New Mexicans truly know how to support one another in times of need.”
It’s unclear how long Santa Fe will provide water to Las Vegas. According to the release, the water is being delivered to the Las Vegas water treatment facility for storage, retreatment and distribution until Las Vegas can treat water from the Gallinas River and Storrie Lake.
Dupuis said he and other Public Utilities Department employees have made two trips to Las Vegas to see if they could help with its water treatment plant, which he said could take a while to get back in working order because of how inundated the reservoirs are with sediment.
In the meantime, Dupuis said it should not be a burden on Santa Fe to continue to provide Las Vegas with water, especially when it rains because fewer people are using water for outdoor purposes.
“Everything we’re giving them is not even tapping into our backup, which is our groundwater,” he said.
The water is coming from one of the two main pipelines at the Buckman Direct Diversion, which Dupuis said currently has plenty of extra capacity. It is being filled into tankers at Wildlife Way; additional locations are being added at Beckner Road and near Airport Road to help reduce congestion at Wildlife Way, the release said.
Macros Companies out of Broussard, La., brought 18 6,000-gallon tankers to Santa Fe, and Dynamite Water out of Scottsdale, Ariz., brought three, both of which are transporting water to Las Vegas. It takes about half an hour to fill one tanker.
“Working around the clock, an estimated 288,000 gallons of water can be taken each day from each filling location,” the release said.
The impact of wildfire on municipal water supply is not limited to any one community. In an April presentation, Roach said one of the reasons his division has been working so hard to build resiliency into its water system is due to the possibility of fire cutting off part of its supply.
If the Santa Fe watershed burns, “worst-case scenario, we think, is we potentially lose storage in our reservoirs for a decade,” he said.
Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth, who chairs the Buckman Direct Diversion board, said Friday she supported the efforts.
“My understanding is this is a crisis,” she said. “We have the capacity to help and are helping.”
