Water War

Glorieta residents say competition for groundwater leaves them dry

As she grabs a tumbler with one hand and the faucet handle with the other, Anita Nugent replaces her smile with a sour face. She wants to serve the neighbors who gather around her kitchen table in Glorieta. Yet, the water from the tap comes slowly. Later, the bathroom faucet’s flow sputters and tapers to just a thin line.

Snippets of conversation from the table drift through the house:

"Just because you've got a right to do something doesn't mean you should."

"It's a well we've been using for 42 years and not had this problem."

"'I don't know if you know,' he tells me, 'But New Mexico is in a drought.'"

Saturday-afternoon wine glasses litter the battlefield of the latest Water War. Nugent has taped signs on the Valencia exit ramp from Interstate 25 near the gathering. "Well going dry?…We think we know a source of the problem." These soldiers answered her call. At least five area residents are having trouble with wells.

Nugent, a physics and forensic science teacher at Santa Fe High, has lived for 16 years in this rural, wooded neighbor to the Pecos Wilderness area about 15 miles from Santa Fe. She and others who live nearby have shelled out thousands of dollars to replace pumps and make other improvements to try to address common issues this summer, but it's clear the water that used to be there just isn't any more.

"My well man said I was sucking air," she recalls.

But why? They've got a theory:

The Glorieta Conference Center changed hands in the spring of 2014, with new owners forming a New Mexico nonprofit that reopened the property as a camp with a mission to "inspire Christ-like change through outdoor adventure." While camp Director Anthony Scott tells SFR in an interview Monday that he can't provide ready figures about how much water the camp has pumped this year, he doesn't deny that it's using more water than under previous ownership who didn't have guests at the property in recent years.

A consent decree filed with the new deed in March shows that in 1990 the Office of the State Engineer said the property had six wells with combined rights up to 869 acre-feet per year. For perspective: An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or what local officials say is enough water for up to four households for a year.

Scott says the camp is trying to be a good neighbor, but notes "one of our fiduciary responsibilities with the property is securing water rights." He says the pumping so far this year is at about a quarter of what's permitted. Meanwhile, the camp is installing low-flow fixtures and has stopped using one well "to see if we can help the aquifer in these drought conditions," he says. "We are not doing anything that has not historically been done," he adds. "The wells here are down in production...So we will pray for rain just like everyone else and see where it goes."

Dean and Patti Dommer share a property line with the camp. They installed a fire-protection pond and a community water system for about five families who are building or are preparing to build homes. It includes a 320-foot well that was working like a champ in January to access some of the 4 acre-feet of water they have rights to. By early summer, it was petering out too, jeopardizing their ability to keep the pond full in the event of a wildfire or structure fire.

"I think they have literally been pumping all this water," Dean Dommer says of camp operators, "just to let the meters run so they can go to the state engineers' office to say 'this is the water we are using, the water we need.'" This summer, Nugent says representatives of the camp told her they had increased pumping to fill a lake. Since then, they decided to let the pond overflow into the Glorieta Creek and have heard from downstream residents who welcomed the practice, she learned in later conversations.

Scott tells SFR the camp is letting water flow out of the lake through a spillway "when we fill it" and "during rains."

Nugent says it appears to be happening regularly to her. A former camp employee took video of fast-moving water in the creek in late September. Calls to the Office of the State Engineer haven't helped, says Nugent, and inquiries to Santa Fe County also met a dead end.

"We don't know what to do," says Nugent. "I'm worried that they have been continuously pumping since April. In a time of drought, why would anyone want to pump that much water?"

In four business days, the Office of the State Engineer was unable to answer specific questions posed by SFR about the situation. Office spokeswoman Lela Hunt says that in general, the agency asks for complaints in writing, which could prompt a staff water-rights review and a field check.

While the office investigates many complaints, Hunt says, "wrong doing" is not at the top of the list of reasons for problems, but rather "New Mexico's severe drought is often the culprit."

Kyle Harwood, an attorney who specializes in water law, says figuring out whether anyone is doing wrong here is a complicated question. A full audit of the State Engineer files would be the only way to determine how much water the Glorieta camp has a right to use and in what manner. Whether letting water run down the creek constitutes "wasting" versus "recreational use" is also a legal matter that the state and/or courts would need to sort out, he says.

"Wells interfering with each other happens all the time, and so there's a question about whether pumping is impairment or whether it is in compliance with their permit," he says.

The crowd gathered around Nugent's table is caught in the messy conflict of water law versus community ethics. Paper water rights seldom match the reality of water actually available. Should the deepest, most powerful straw always win? Should consideration be given to people who live somewhere versus a business venture or playground? How can we share what's there?

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