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The Buckman Well Field was originally permitted to allow the City of Santa Fe to take advantage of imported San Juan/Chama water. This water comes from the San Juan River Basin in Colorado via a diversion tunnel (cut beneath the Continental Divide) into the Rio Chama. From the Rio Chama the water flows into the Rio Grande. At the time, the San Juan/Chama water was considered excess. The Bureau of Reclamation envisioned the San Juan/Chama water as a boon to the cities on the Rio Grande to supply their growth needs. Renewable 40 year leases were made available and there was a limited time frame for obtaining these water rights. The price was reasonable although the lease had to be paid whether water was used or not. At the time, PNM was the owner of Santa Fe's water company and operated it through a franchise with the City.
Santa Fe was not very aggressive about obtaining these leases, and Albuquerque obtained the majority of them. Santa Fe obtained 5,605 acre feet per year (AFY) of these contract rights to use water, and for a long time, PNM felt it was easier to just pay the fees at the reasonable rates than to figure out a way to bring surface water on line. They stated that a surface water filtration plant on the Rio Grande would cost $32 million. So an alternative plan for diverting San Juan/Chama water was sought.
The Buckman Well Field project became Santa Fe's alternative plan. After engineering studies (with which many engineers and hydrologists disagreed), it was determined that the hydrology would be suitable to drilling a series of 8 wells. It was expected these wells would induce depletions in the underground aquifer, which would then be recharged by water from the Rio Grande. In turn, the city-owned San Juan/Chama water would offset the depletion to the Rio Grande. In 1976, the diversion of up to 10,000 AFY was allowed by the Office of the State Engineer (OSE) from the well field.
The pumping from the well field also caused depletions to the Pojoaque and the Tesuque stream systems. So the city was required to purchase and retire water rights in these stream systems to offset these depletions. It soon became apparent that the location of these wells, and the hydrology and geology of the underlying aquifer were all far from ideal (or even good). The geology of the area was not conducive to a large infiltration from the Rio Grande and recharge of the aquifer. Water production from the well field did not meet expectations and some of the wells were relocated & re-drilled.
In 2002, the city decided to drill five supplemental wells located at increasing distances from the Rio Grande for what was promoted as a “new water supply” for Santa Fe under the existing Buckman Well Field permit for 10,000 AFY. The city applied to the OSE for permission to divert water from the new wells. Santa Fe Basin Water Association (SFBWA) felt that the city was no longer operating under the originally approved plan for diverting San Juan/Chama water from the Rio Grande. The supplemental wells would be drawing water from the aquifer in locations where it would not be adequately recharged from the Rio Grande. Impacts of the resulting drawdown would be felt in existing wells in nearby communities as well as the springs at La Cienega.
SFBWA protested with the OSE the city’s application for the supplemental wells numbered 10 through 13 which were furthest away from the Rio Grande. After various legal maneuvers, the city agreed to limit pumping from these four supplemental wells to prevent impairment to existing wells within a four miles radius. Further, the city agreed to a monitoring program administered by the OSE to evaluate the drawdown in water level from pumping the four supplemental wells. In addition, the city agreed that any water level declines in the monitored area would be presumed to be caused by pumping the four supplemental wells, and it would be up to the city to prove otherwise.
The details of the agreement between SFBWA and the city may be found here.
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