Living River

The Santa Fe Watershed Association invites your support and participation in reviving the Santa Fe River from the dry ditch that we see today to a flowing, vibrant perennial stream that brings life to our community.

Our dream is a flowing, meandering, tree-lined stream where children can play, and one in which all of us can enjoy. The beauty of this river will also have a practical side. A restored river and its tributary arroyos will retain more water during floods and keep more water in the aquifer where it can be recovered through wells. A healthy river system would even deliver water all the way to the Rio Grande.

A living river enhances property values and serves as a highly desirable "waterscape" for cafes, hotels, and residential dwellings. A flowing river recharges the aquifer which becomes our primary source of water during droughts. A living river provides benefits for plants and wildlife too, which in turn enriches our human quality of life. The economic benefits are difficult to quantify but they are real enough that countries from Australia to South Africa to Spain prohibit the dewatering of rivers.

What can be done? The simplest solution is to keep some of the water in the river, allowing enough to support a healthy ecosystem. The water that flows down the river channel, through the city, and on down into the county, then into Cochiti tribal lands toward the Rio Grande, helps replenish the aquifer as it infiltrates into the soil; it gives sustenance to the vegetation along the channel, and it supports bugs, fish, amphibians, and birds along the way. Some of this water is recovered by city and private wells. Some of the water makes its way into the Rio Grande aquifer.

The Santa Fe Watershed Association is currently involved with a core working group formed by the City of Santa Fe to decide the best way to release a 1,00 acre feet of water each year in the river. We are excited that the City has prioritized this water for river flow.

Water Conservation

Another way to find more water for our river is through conservation. While it is true that Santa Fe water customers have been doing a better job each year with water conservation, there is much more that could be done. Around the country, cities are using less water per capita than they did just five years ago, thanks to increasing awareness about simple ways to conserve water, such as low-fluch toilets, improved shower heads, etc. Here are additional ways to gain greater impact on water conservation:

1. Rooftop water harvesting. Many cities are capturing water before it becomes stormwater. This can provide a valuable substitute for using City water for landscaping. Since landscape irrigation accounts for a big portion of peak summer demand -- which is also when the river is most in need of water for its environmental health -- capturing and storing roof-top water can be an important part of meeting the river's water needs.

2. Improved landscape water use. Santa Fe gardens use a lot more water than they need to, even to meet their often questionable objectives of looking like a garden somewhere other than in the arid Southwest! There are many small ways of saving water in the garden, which add up to significant savings. The Water Division's site on Water Conservation Demonstration Gardens gives lots of ideas.

3. More efficient household appliances that use water. Of course your toilet is low-flow, but are you using a front-loading washer? Are you using the shortest cycle on your dishwasher? Does your shower heat up instantly [Mine doesn't...!]? Appliances you use every day can yield considerable water savings.

4. Water re-use. From dumping the pan of dish water on the plants, to configuring your septic tank to convert black water to grey water and connecting it all to a drip irrigation system, there is a world of creativity awaiting you in the challenge of re-using water. The more times water can be re-used within the home and garden, the less water you will need from the City water supply and the more water will be available for our thirsty river. You can find many ideas about water re-use, and other conservation tips, from the Blueprint for Santa Fe.

For an overview of the City's long-term plan for water conservation, see the City of Santa Fe Water Conservation and Drought Management Plan.

Water Rights for the Santa Fe River

The Santa Fe River doesn't suffer from a lack of water; it suffers from a lack of water rights. After all, landowners along Acequia Madre receive regular supplies of water even if the river itself is dry, because those landowners are also owners of senior water rights. The River, while arguably considerably more senior then any of us, never filed for rights to its own water! The solution? We can do the paperwork that the River neglected to do. We can purchase water rights that can be designated for environmental flow. The new rights need to be legally recognized as senior, which involves some legal maneuvering. The concept of purchasing water rights to guarantee an environmental flow has been applied throughout the West in some form or other. These experiences are outlined in a recent report from Trout Unlimited, entitled, "Liquid Assets." Click here to download this report (PDF File, 1.3MB)

Learn more about environmental flow

Environmental Flows Network Newsletter, produced by the International Water Management Institute, IUCN, TNC, and other environmental and water organizations, connects the disparate people who are working on this topic.

"A Collaborative and Adoptive Process for Developing Environmental Flow Recommendations," a recent article by B. Richter et al published in River Research and Applications, and available for download (PDF file)

Desert's Rivers Can Be Revived, an op-ed piece by Melissa Lamberton in The Arizona Daily Star highlights the experience of South Africa and its relevance to Arizona (and by implication, to New Mexico as well).

FLOW - The Essentials of Environmental Flows, published in 2003 by the Water and Nature Initiative of IUCN - The World Conservation Union. This site provides the publication as a free download, along with other information and links regarding the economics of living rivers.