Water

The majority of residents in the Tano Road area rely on private wells for household water. Our wells draw from the same underground water sources used by the city and county public water systems. We will post current information regarding important water rights and private well ownership issues on this link.

In 2001 the Tano Road Association teamed with Santa Fe Basin Water Association (SFBWA) in its protest of the city’s Northwest Well (NWW), which went it to production in 2000.  The State Engineer ruled that the production of the NWW be limited to no more than 900 acre feet per year and that the City take monthly measurements  of production, depth to water, and recovery to file with the OSE.  This cap expires in 2011. TRA has been monitoring the well usage,  receiving data monthly from the State Engineer’s office on millions of gallons used, the meter reading, the depth to water in feet, and whether on not the pump was on. Click here to see the record of NWW pumping.

NWW update from minutes of the 1011 Annual Meeting: (see http://tanoroad.org/about-tra/board for full minutes.)

The current 10-year permit for the city’s pumping of the Northwest Well will expire in January, 2012.  The city water division has announced plans to re-apply to the Office of State Engineer for a full production well permit with maximum pumping rights.  What does this mean to private well owners in our neighborhood?  There are concerns about quality and quantity.  Based on the nearest monitoring well, water levels in the Tano Road area are declining by about 2.3 feet per year.  The NW Well is the major cause of this decline.  Heavy pumping of the city’s wells in other areas is associated with higher levels of arsenic and uranium, above EPA standards. Heavy pumping of the city’s nearby NW Well could have serious adverse effects on our Tano Road area domestic wells.

The TRA and the Santa Fe Basin Water Association will protest the city’s re-application through the OSE’s legal protest process.  We will address both the OSE designation of the well and the amount of water to be pumped.  The TRA board has retained legal counsel and hydrologists, and it is estimated that the protest process will take about two years at a cost to our organization of approximately $65,000.  The city is budgeting $40,000 to $80,000 for defense of their re-application.  Of the approximately 380 homes in the Tano Road area, about 360 use domestic wells, private or shared.  It is important to get this information out to all property owners in our neighborhood, both TRA members and non-members. There will be updates and information posted on TRA website as we move through this protest process.