Nearly 300 New Mexico Towns Face Water Crisis

By: Susan Montoya Bryan

Published: August 8, 2013

 

 

 

 

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — State officials have been fielding a steady stream of phone calls and emails from the managers of community drinking water systems around the state as drought refuses to give up its grip on New Mexico.

The managers are looking to the state for help as they work to avert a crisis. Water levels are still dropping, aging infrastructure is being pushed to its limits and federal funding is growing more scarce.

In all, the state has identified nearly 300 drinking water systems that are considered vulnerable. Many of them depend on a single source of water and have no backup plan if conditions worsen.
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"We really have been experiencing calls for assistance and notifications of water shortages and outages throughout the state in a way that we haven't seen in recent drought years," Danielle Shuryn of the New Mexico Environment Department said during a conference call.
Just last month, tens of thousands of gallons of water had to be trucked to the town of Magdalena after the community's sole operating well failed, leaving about 1,000 residents and several businesses without water.
A coalition of government agencies and nonprofit organizations is now trying to help water system operators prepare so they don't become the next Magdalena. The groups have teamed up to help communities with engineering work to identify backup water sources, monitor existing sources and develop emergency plans in the event of a water outage.
An initial round of letters will be sent to 290 community water systems determined to be at the greatest risk, but Shuryn said the state plans to make the program open to any interested water system.
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With drought putting pressure on supplies, small communities around New Mexico are seeing wells filling with silt and failing, said Matt Holmes, executive director of the New Mexico Rural Water Association, a partner in the project.
"There are a lot of factors and I think the drought is sort a stressor. That adds an additional stress, and it might be the straw that breaks the camel's back," Holmes said. "In many of these communities where we see these water shortages, it's really infrastructure problems that are the core failure."
Another goal of the collaboration is public education. Despite a heavy dose of monsoonal rains in July, state officials said the drought is far from over. New Mexico still leads the nation when it comes to the worst and most widespread drought conditions.
"A larger view of this work is to encourage mindful use of water, water conservation and how we can be more efficient with this limited resource," said Morgan Nelson, a policy analyst with the department.

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The city of Clemson, SC has issued a safety warning on it's website advising the closure of the Abernathy Boardwalk due to unusually high waters in Lake Hartwell in July 2013. (City of Clemson)