Symbols of dry times are everywhere in this city in northeastern New Mexico.
Yards are brown and dusty for want of water. A 5-gallon plastic jug is stuck under the air conditioner drains at a Best Western hotel to capture water for use on landscaping. Residents buy reclaimed wastewater from the city to keep trees and flowers alive. A worker at a restaurant turns the tap on and off every few seconds to wash stacks of dirty dishes.
"We need to reduce water use even more in the restaurant, but it is hard," said Charlie Sandoval, owner of the popular Charlie's Spic & Span Bakery and Cafe on Douglas Avenue. When paper plates were mandated for restaurants, it proved a disaster for his popular cheese-heavy fare.
Even in a town accustomed in the last decade to increasing water rates and tough water restrictions, the situation is driving conversations. "The noise around here about water problems is getting deeper," Sandoval said in his bustling restaurant. "Water is a big issue for businesses and residents. We're in a situation we should have done something 40 years ago to fix."
The city has dealt with a haphazard water supply since it was founded in 1881. But a leaking dam, drought and an aging water system have brought the city of 13,700 and the public university there to a crisis point in the last two years. Last year, Las Vegas was within 50 days of running completely out of potable water. This year was a little better: 70 days.
Las Vegas is scrambling to ensure it has an emergency water supply. It is raising water rates again and looking for money everywhere it can, to foot the bill for all the needed work. That means scrounging for millions of dollars in a town where the median income is $24,000.
It is not the only town in New Mexico facing water shortages. Towns all over the state increasingly are trying to tap into limited supplies or pipe in water from other sources hundreds of miles away. As climate change warms temperatures and shifts precipitation from snow to rain, the water woes are likely to deepen.
But Las Vegas' options are already more limited than many, both in available water and financial resources. "If we have another dry winter, we're in trouble," Sandoval said.
Las Vegas should have three years of water stored for emergencies, according to engineers hired for a water study. Right now, Mayor Alfonso Ortiz would be happy with an eight-month supply. It will cost an estimated $123 million to do all the work needed to ensure the city's water supply: deepen existing reservoirs and repair a leaking dam, replace aging pipes to customers' taps, drill wells and find new water sources.
Don Cole, water manager for the city of Las Vegas, said they're working on all options to shore up water supplies as they have the funding.
About 90 percent of the town's water supply comes from the Gallinas River. Water is stored at Peterson Reservoir and Bradner Reservoir. More water storage space is leased in Storrie Lake; most of the lake's water belongs to irrigators. All told, the city has about 1,000 acre-feet of water storage capacity. That's enough to supply customers for a year — if the water is there.
Cole said that so far they are faring better than last year, when flows in the Gallinas fell to 400,000 gallons a day. The river supplies about 90 percent of the city's water for Las Vegas residents, businesses, New Mexico Highlands University and a regional hospital.
The other 10 percent of the town's potable water comes from wells. The city has only two working wells in its Taylor Well Field several miles west of the town. Most date to the 1950s. One working well produces 300 gallons per minute. It is cost-prohibitive to fix the nonworking wells; in addition, the water supply is sketchy, Cole said.
The zones from which some of the wells pumped plentiful water for decades are now dry. Residents in the nearby community of Romeroville have complained for several years that when Las Vegas pumps the Taylor Well Field, their private domestic well levels decline.
A week ago, the city finished drilling a new $1.2 million well in the field, close to a once-gushing water zone. When they tested the well, it produced only 50 gallons per minute. "That's an expensive 50 gallons," Cole said.
They have another well in the field that is drilled down 3,000 feet to a pocket of brackish water. The city is seeking an estimated $8 million to build a desalination plant and treat the water to potable standards.
But right now, the city's water fortunes hang heavily on the Gallinas River.
A river, a dam and a thirsty city
Cole stands below the 49-foot-tall concrete Peterson Dam. Water pours out from cracks in the 101-year-old dam at two or three places near the base, like a tub with a faulty stopper. In the winter, the cracks widen. The whole breadth of the dam's face is wet and mossy from constant seepage.
"The reservoir holds about 200 acre-feet of water," Cole said. "It leaks about 200 acre-feet per year. Basically it leaks itself out each year."
The Gallinas River has been flowing at 1.2 to 1.4 million gallons a day recently. It is one of the lowest flows for this time of year since the United States Geological Survey began measuring the creek in 1926. The average flow since measurements began is 8 to 10 million gallons a day, Cole said.
But Las Vegas residential and business customers consume 1.5 to 1.6 million gallons a day. "We have to make up the difference somehow," Cole said.
The city drummed up state and federal funds to complete a new $1.5 million diversion on the river last year, which makes more efficient use of lower flows than the original one built in 1890. The diversion screens out some of the rocks, branches and other debris that used to make their way into the city's intake pipe.
Water that's not shipped to a settling pond and then the city's treatment plant, is piped over a ridge into the next canyon, which holds Peterson Reservoir.
The city's top priority, besides fixing leaking and burst water pipes, is to find money to raise the dam's height by 50 feet and plug the leaks. If both could be done, the city could store another 1,200 acre-feet of Gallinas water at the reservoir. That would give the city two years' worth of water.
Before the leaks can be fixed, however, the city has to wrestle with an unexpected problem: a small wetlands created by the flow below the dam. The federal government determined the city has to preserve the wetlands once the dam is repaired. The new dam will need to ensure that a steady supply of 40 gallons per minute trickles through the wetlands from April to October, under an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Cole said.
The leaking dam and the wetlands aren't the only worry Las Vegans have for their primary water source. The Gallinas Watershed, which drains 84 square miles of Santa Fe National Forest and private lands in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains into the river, has a high wildfire risk. The forests are dense and dry. Despite efforts to thin the trees and reduce the risk, there's still a lot to be done. A major wildfire in the watershed would set the scene for a disaster on the river: Rainstorms after the fire would wash ash, burned logs, rocks and debris into the water, making it unusable.
The city is urging customers to conserve water while it struggles to find new supplies. Cole is not sure what more they can do. Residential customers are averaging less than 4,000 gallons of water per month. They are using rain barrels provided by the city to capture rooftop runoff. They aren't watering their landscaping unless they buy the reclaimed wastewater at an additional cost.
Any green park, golf course or field in the city is either fake turf or watered by reclaimed wastewater. The city's historic downtown plaza was finally revived this summer after new treated wastewater lines were installed.
Las Vegas officials are trying to convince customers that everyone will have to pay more on water bills to cover some of the cost of repairing the city's water system and dam. A proposal the city is considering now would raise the monthly cost of 3,000 gallons of water from $17.28 to $30.80 by 2014 for residential customers. Costs for commercial customers could double.
Brothers Sanjay and Krutik Bhakta, owners of three major hotels in Las Vegas, said they know everyone needs to pay more to resolve the water problem. But they grew up in the town and they've watched the water issue grow, along with the cost of water bills. Commercial ventures like theirs are hit with the highest rate increases. "This has been an ongoing issue for 30 years," Krutik Bhakta said.
"There's been a lot of water rate increases and there haven't always been results," his brother said. "A lot of residents are apprehensive about this."
As hotel owners, the Bhaktas' business relies heavily on water. They said they do what they can to conserve. They buy reclaimed wastewater from the city and stick the plastic jugs under air conditioner drains, to try and keep hotel landscaping alive. They encourage customers to have towels washed only every three days. "But they are paying. If they want them washed every day, we can't say no," Krutik Bhakta said.
They aren't supposed to refill their swimming pools, which makes it tough to ever drain and clean them. The pools are a big draw for travelers on nearby Interstate 25. Without pools, potential guests are more likely to keep driving to the next large town, the brothers said.
The brothers said they think the city administration and utility staff are making great strides in finally fixing the city's water problems. But both the town's population and incomes have declined in the last decade. There's no way Las Vegas can raise all the money it needs to resolve its water issues just from its residents, the Bhaktas said. "We need help to get it all finished," Krutik Bhakta said.
To them, the dilemma is clear. Without water, the city can't attract more businesses or residents. Without more businesses, there's no tax base to improve the infrastructure for water.
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Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, http://www.sfnewmexican.com
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.