Firefighters from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., fill up a holding tank from Gallinas Creek northwest of Las Vegas, N.M., while combating the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in May. Roughly $140 million in the proposed federal budget would be directed toward Las Vegas’ water treatment system, which was choked with sediment and debris during the state’s largest-ever wildfire. One proposal for the money would install a treatment system on the Gallinas River.
Firefighters from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., fill up a holding tank from Gallinas Creek northwest of Las Vegas, N.M., while combating the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in May. Roughly $140 million in the proposed federal budget would be directed toward Las Vegas’ water treatment system, which was choked with sediment and debris during the state’s largest-ever wildfire. One proposal for the money would install a treatment system on the Gallinas River.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Friday an emergency declaration for Las Vegas, N.M., because of ashy sediment and debris from a widespread burn scar that are threatening the city’s water system.
The executive orders make $2.25 million in state emergency funding available to assist the city with measures such as buying a pre-treatment system to filter the contaminated water flowing from the Gallinas River.
The governor’s orders followed an emergency declaration Thursday by Las Vegas Mayor Louie Trujillo after utility managers determined the city would have less than 50 days of water that could be made drinkable.
“There is additional water that has extremely high turbidites that cannot be treated in our system and meet drinking water standards,” Maria Gilvarry, the city’s utilities director, wrote in an email. “The extremely poor quality water could also possibly cause shutdowns and a dramatic increase in cleanings.”
The city has been unable to draw water from the Gallinas River, which has been contaminated with ash and debris, and instead has tapped the Petersen and Bradner reservoirs, the Las Vegas Optic reported.
But earlier this week, the Peterson Dam was polluted by debris, taking it offline, and now the plan is to pull water from Storrie Lake with the help of a pre-treatment system that will cost about $1 million to operate and take two weeks to set up, the Optic reported.
“The destruction that continues to befall New Mexico communities affected by the U.S. Forest Service planned burns from earlier this year is unfathomable,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “New Mexicans in San Miguel County have been through enough — we will continue to do everything we can to support them and prevent additional damage as a result of the wildfires.”
The situation with contaminated water was an expected impact of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, which scorched more than 341,000 acres, including in the Las Vegas area.
In May, U.S. Forest Service officials said monsoon rains would wash ashy sediment and other debris from charred hillsides into the Gallinas River. Much of it would be carried downstream to the city’s water treatment system unequipped to filter out the contaminants.
At the time, Micah Kiesow, who coordinated burned area recovery for Santa Fe National Forest, said ash, being highly buoyant, would travel a long way downstream and infiltrate municipal water systems, such as the one in Las Vegas.
The city’s treatment system isn’t equipped to remove the ash from water intended for drinking, Kiesow said. Ash-laden water is troublesome, he added, because it has increased nitrates, phosphorus, metals, dissolved organic carbon and suspended solids, all of which make it much harder to treat.
City officials were aware in May that a pre-treatment system would be needed.
Acquiring that system is involved, Gilvarry wrote. Beyond the normal shopping, it requires quality assurance from engineers, finding a funding source, crafting a plan to coordinate everything and getting approval from the drinking water bureau.
“These all take time,” she wrote.
The pre-treatment system is designed to clean up the water enough to run it effectively through the normal process, she noted.
“The pre-treatment will bring the extremely poor quality water closer to a dirty water that is treatable with our current system,” she wrote. “It is likely there will be some fine tuning and additional measures needed to treat the water to the highest quality possible.”
