Column: Our Water Quality

About possible additional supply options

By: Stephen Wiman
Published online: Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Appeared in: Home, Santa Fe Real Estate Guide
Edition: January 2012 Vol. 14 No. 10

Last month the City of Santa Fe held an interactive public meeting to obtain input and prioritization from area residents concerning a multitude of possible uses of treated effluent (reclaimed wastewater) from the city’s wastewater treatment plant. The possible uses were divided into seven overall categories, which included several applications currently being practiced. The technical portion of the meeting was conducted by Claudia Borchert, the city’s water resources coordinator.

She and the other members of the Sangre de Cristo Water Division staff are duly concerned about water supply. Two possible future options are direct reuse and aquifer storage. Many communities already practice indirect reuse where drinking- water intake occurs downstream from wastewater discharge from other cities. EPA standards govern the quality of consumer supplies of drinking water. Direct reuse is the most technically demanding and it is also a highly contentious issue because of associations of reusing water that once contained sewage, as well as concerns about potential contamination by pharmaceuticals and personal-care products not regulated by the EPA. Direct potable reuse is certainly the most extreme form of reused wastewater and usually only happens in emergencies or when blended with treated water.

Aquifer storage (widely known as aquifer storage and recovery, or ASR) involves discharging effluent treated to drinking- water standards into bodies of waters where percolation into aquifers might occur, or injecting it directly into aquifers for later recovery. Although ASR has both geologic and water-chemistry limitations, this process is widely used around the country. A Rio Rancho project started with injecting potable water with the ultimate goal of injecting highly treated wastewater.

You have probably heard or read that prominent oil magnates such as T. Boone Pickens are buying up water rights in anticipation of being able to sell them to municipalities concerned with drought and climate change. Recently we have seen cities in Texas deplete their entire water supplies through a combination of extreme and prolonged drought, as well as poor planning. Larger entities dependent on private wells here in New Mexico, including businesses, ranches and farms, are also looking ahead to solve potential supply issues by securing water rights for deeper wells.

In 2009 the Office of the State Engineer gained regulatory authority to specify engineering design (to protect shallow aquifers) and to impose water-sampling requirements for “brackish water” wells, which are defined as those drilled deeper than 2,500 feet and having total dissolved solids (TDS) greater than 1,000 parts per million. The (secondary, non-enforceable) drinking water standard for TDS of public water supplies is 500 parts per million. These deeper wells were previously unregulated.

The deeper drilling technology and water-treatment methodologies required are currently available, and the latter, thanks to rapid developments in seawater desalination, are bound to drop in price before this technology is widely required. But then there are the potentially high pipeline transportation costs, if water from these deeper aquifers is ultimately needed in urban centers. You can certainly expect this deeper well supply source and the associated water rights to be controversial issues.

Stephen Wiman has a background in earth science (Ph.D. in geology) and is the owner of Good Water Company and a member of the Santa Fe Water Conservation Committee. He may be reached at 505-471-9036 and skwiman@ goodwatercompany.com.