Water conservation and stormwater management will the topics of a June 10th webinar series from the Doña Ana Soil and Water Conservation District. Scott Brocato spoke with Rhonda Diaz, City of Las Cruces Water Conservation Program Coordinator; and Peter Bennett, City of Las Cruces Municipal Stormwater Specialist; who will both host the upcoming free webinar.
Scott Brocato:
Well, Rhonda, let's start the questions with you. Your upcoming webinar--actually it's with both of you--on June 10th focuses on water conservation. What particular issues regarding water conservation will you be focusing on?
Rhonda Diaz:
So I would like to talk to the public, the participants, about us living in the desert and learning to conserve water more and use water more efficiently.
Scott Brocato:
And what kind of recommendations would you make about conserving water?
Rhonda Diaz:
So our consumption increases almost doubles and triples in the summertime. So irrigation is a large user of water during the summer, and now that our summers are longer, we have restrictions between April and September. Well, we start in March and go through November sometimes with 90° weather where people are still watering lawns and vegetable gardens and whatnot. Also, swamp coolers are a large water user, and so how do we get people to understand changing to refrigerated air and having an electricity cost but not having that water usage?
Scott Brocato:
Well, Peter, let's switch over to you. Your portion of the June 10th webinar will focus on stormwater management. First, what does stormwater management consist of?
Peter Bennett:
Well, stormwater management consists of basically all the infrastructure that's involved for managing storm water during rain events, such as pipes, culverts, detention basins, canals, that sort of thing. You think about stormwater here and it's kind of out of sight, out of mind; it doesn't happen but only a few times a year. So when it does rain, usually we get a pretty good event. And we're managing that stormwater infrastructure throughout the year by removing trash and dust, dirt and sediment. That sediment is the number one cause of pollution and obstruction in our system. So you think, oh well, it doesn't rain here that much, don't have to worry about it; but we don't get our system flushed out enough. So we have to constantly maintain it throughout the year by removing all that sediment and trash and debris.
Scott Brocato:
And what issues are you going to touch upon?
Peter Bennett:
The issues I'm going to touch upon is just how we maintain it, how we track it, what kind of crews we have to do the maintenance inspections, that sort of thing.
Scott Brocato:
And what's the difference between stormwater and wastewater?
Peter Bennett:
Well, stormwater isn't treated. It's not at an official utility where you pay for it. It's kind of attached to our property taxes, so you don't really see that fee. Wastewater goes to the treatment facility. So it goes from your homes, it's piped right to the treatment plant, and it's treated. And stormwater basically just goes from our pipes to like detention basins. Sometimes it'll go to the Rio Grande directly, so it's not treated. So when you see those storm inlets on the side of the street, you got to remember that the only storm rain goes in there because it's not treated, and we have to do our part to keep that storm water clean.
Scott Brocato:
What other issues concern both of you—let's go back with you, Rhonda--in terms of water conservation that we haven't discussed?
Rhonda Diaz:
So I really think that outreach is like 99% of my job, and it's very important to talk about it constantly, and I find myself constantly talking about water conservation.
Scott Brocato:
In what ways, when you say "outreach”? Through webinars like the one you're about to do? What other ways?
Rhonda Diaz:
Webinars like we're about to do. We have a spring and fall workshop series that focuses on mostly outdoor water use because of the increase in consumption during the summertime. And the fall, we use a lot of NMSU subject matter experts to talk about soils and vegetables and insects and weeds.
Also, we have a children's water festival that we started with 4th graders. We have all the 4th graders, they're invited out to an outdoor location in the spring, and we have organizations that volunteer their time to talk about water conservation and conservation in general. So they're being educated, taking that information home to parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles. I think that's really important that they're going and saying “turn off the water when you brush your teeth,” that kind of thing.
Scott Brocato:
How about you, Peter? Are there any issues or things that you would like to bring up that we haven't discussed about stormwater management?
Peter Bennett:
Yeah, I'd just like to touch what Rhonda was saying, how our stormwater and water conservation kind of intertwine. Like I mentioned, we have the storm water detention basins that collect stormwater. And that's really important to aquifer recharge. So we want to get that storm water back into the ground so it helps supply that water table again. So that's kind of where we, you know. Water is treated too as well. The stormwater gets purified through percolation and that sort of thing. But it also recharges and creates more water supply. So I just wanted to show you how those two programs intertwine there.
