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The Bureau of Reclamation mascot, Otto the Otter helps Lynn Kronowit (OMI, Rio Rancho) and the Water Wizard (Ruben Archuletta, City of Rio Rancho) at the Children's Water Festival.

Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD) Project is a critical component of Santa Fe's efforts to conserve water and plan for a sustainable water future.

Planning for a
Sustainable Future:
The Buckman
Direct Diversion
Project

The Santa Fe community has worked hard to conserve water and plan for a sustainable water future. We all know water is necessary to meet the residential and business needs and sustain our quality of life. One of the most critical components of Santa Fe's safe and sustainable water system is the Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD) Project, designed to ensure the region has a reliable, sustainable drinking water supply now and into the future. Critical to this project is the word “now.”

The City of Santa Fe's Sangre de Cristo Water Division has recommended the Santa Fe City Council adopt a new ordinance that would increase water rates by 9.5 percent each year for five years. The increases would be as follows:

Why five years?

First of all, the increases are necessary in large part to pay for the city’s share of the BDD construction costs for the initial years. The yearly increases after 2009 will be used to pay for improvements to Santa Fe’s existing infrastructure, including upgrades to the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant and reservoirs, rehabilitation of existing wells, equipment replacement and additions, and overall system improvements. Spreading these increases over five years will allow better planning and help avoid large, single-year corrections to the rates. Once approved by the City Council, this ordinance and the new rates will take effect on March 1, 2009 and on January 1 every year thereafter for the remaining four years.

Why now?

The City of Santa Fe needs the rate increase now to help pay for construction of the BDD. This project is crucial to supplement current water sources, i.e., the regional groundwater wells and reservoirs on the Santa Fe River. The city is pumping too much water from regional groundwater wells, potentially damaging the underground aquifer. Meanwhile, the Santa Fe River reservoirs supply less than half of the drinking water needed in the best of years. During some dry years, such as 2002, the reservoirs provided very little water, which has caused the city to enact emergency water use measures. The BDD will allow the aquifer to rest and supplement the water supply from the Santa Fe River Reservoirs. It will also ensure the community has a reliable supply of drinking water, regardless of weather conditions.

For more information about the proposed water rate increases, contact Gary Martinez at (505) 955-4201 or (505) 780-0700 or gpmartinez@santafenm.gov.

Draft 10-Year Financial Plan Proposed
Presentation/Hearing Schedule

For additional information re the schedule, please contact Maya Martinez, Public Utilities Department at (505) 955-5731 or mfmartinez@ci.santa-fe.nm.us

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No Child
Left Behind
Won’t Leave
Water Education
Behind

Free Classroom Water Presentations

Once again this year, Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA) is offering free presentations about water conservation and water quality to teachers in grades 1–12. Each of these hands-on presentations

Could it get any better than that? Yes!

This year, classroom teachers will receive a list of the New Mexico Content Standards and Benchmarks (NMSB) that were covered during the classroom activity, as well as a list of Standards and Benchmarks for the workbooks left behind. That is important for three reasons.

#1: No Classroom Time for “Interesting” Activities
First, with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, teachers are now responsible for making sure they cover all the important academic concepts written into the NMSB, which leaves less time for topics that are not part of these standards/benchmarks.

Unfortunately, the topics of water conservation and water protection are not specifically written into the Standards and Benchmarks, which is why presenters have chosen activities that not only cover the required topics but also lead them directly into discussions of how to save local waters. By reassuring teachers their students will learn the material they need to know, presenters make the material more valuable as they teach about conservation.

#2: Water Education Tied to Grade Level Goals
Determining what was covered in the activities can be exceedingly time-consuming since the curriculum about water uses science, social studies, math, and language arts. Presenters save elementary teachers the aggravation of looking through four sets of Standards and Benchmarks — one for each of these topics. (Each document is about 50 pages long.) In the same vein, they also save middle school and high school teachers a search through their own Standards and Benchmarks.

#3: Learning Continues After Presenters Leave
It is much more likely that teachers will spend classroom time on follow-up when the materials left behind have been tied to their classroom goals. Since presenters can only spend 45 minutes to an hour in a classroom, teachers who continue the water education ensure students learn the material at a much deeper level.

Public Academy for the Performing Arts
7th-graders at Public Academy for Performing Arts are given a career and they build a water web based upon how they use water and what services they provide to our city. The jugs of water are 70% full (representing the river) and 30% full (representing the aquifer).

But that’s not all. In November ABCWUA presenters will be offering two presentations in Spanish to elementary students, which are also tied to the appropriate Standards and Benchmarks.

ABCWUA expects to increase the number of presentations from 400 to at least 600 this year. Explore the website to see a list of the presentations for each grade and their respective Standards and Benchmarks.

Teachers can also find the Standards and Benchmarks for Rio, The Water Detective and Discover the Waters of New Mexico on the website for the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, http://www.ose.state.nm.us/water-info/conservation/h2o-outreach.html.

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NMWCA Members Attend 2008 WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Expo

The first ever WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Expo was held this year in Las Vegas, Nevada from October 8-10. Considered a success, this conference brought together attendees from all over the region, many from the New Mexico Water Conversation Alliance. This conference is one of the most effective avenues for water conservationists in the U.S. and the world to come together to discuss water efficiency practices and policies with their colleagues and peers.

Below are highlights from the conference in the words of a few NMWCA members.

Dan Ransom said “I feel the best part of any conference is the exhibitors. Is it a gimmick or is there a real potential for water savings? Talking with the manufacturers, sales staff, and even inventors is one of the best ways to gain information about conservation technology. I am able to ask specific questions to better determine the practical use of a technology and determine if it is proven to save water. The Expo offered a very good representation of technologies from toilets to sprinklers. By the way, I did pass up on the red light green light shower head; however, I think they could improve it by only allowing cold water after ten minutes.

The conference offered many tracts and subjects, although I think there was too much emphasis on ET controllers. In the future, I would like to see more training sessions and workshops, but overall, I would recommend next year’s conference to anyone interested in water conservation. Nowhere else will you find a conference this devoted to water conservation!”

Daniel Ransom, CID, CIC, CGIA, CAIS
Water Conservation Manager
Sangre de Cristo Water

Cheri Vogel lists her opinion of the best
resources from the conference:

Cheri Vogel
Water Conservation Coordinator
NM Office of the State Engineer

Darell Rogers found Mary Ann Dickinson’s presentation had “wild” ideas and thoughts
for EPA WaterSense 2020. Mary Ann is from the organization Alliance for Water Efficiency .
Some of her ideas are:

Gary Klein also gave an exciting presentation on water heating and hot water distribution. He said as the water rate (gpm) for fixtures is reduced, the wait time is longer for hot water if you don’t properly design your hot water distribution system. The challenge is to deliver hot water to every fixture in the house wasting no more energy than we currently waste and wasting no more than one cup as we wait for hot water to arrive at the faucet. He pointed out that if you don’t want to wait more than three seconds, you can only store 1/10 of a gallon in the pipe. In order to design an energy and water efficient system, you need to follow what Gary refers to as “structured plumbing guidelines,” which requires a distribution system located within one cup of every hot water fixture. The recommended design procedures are:

Gary’s presentation can be found at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/sda_saving_water.pdf.

Darell Rogers
Operation Lead for Sandia Infrastructure
Sandia National Lab

Ruben Archuleta said “the best part of the conference for me was making contacts with other cities and talking about the way they run their water conservation programs. The programs were somewhat helpful, and I learned at least one new thing from the class presentations. The location was good.”

Ruben Archuleta
City of Rio Rancho
Water Conservation Tech

The Resource Library is intended as a one-stop shop for water efficient product and program information.

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AWE and U.S. EPA Announce Major Information Web Site on Water Efficiency with a Resource Library

CHICAGO – October 6, 2008 The Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE), a national non-profit organization that promotes the efficient and sustainable use of water, has announced the formal launch of a comprehensive web-based Water Efficiency Resource Library, in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who is a major partner and funder of the program. The Resource Library is located at www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org. The announcement was made in conjunction with the WaterSmart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas, October 8-10.

"Water is America's greatest liquid asset, and citizen awareness is the most powerful tool to protect it," said EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin H. Grumbles. "EPA commends the Alliance for Water Efficiency for increasing public understanding, spreading the ethic of efficiency, and building partnerships to sustain the water planet." The Resource Library has been under construction for nearly two years. “We were very pleased that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provided funding and support to assist us with this important project,” said Carole Baker, Chair of the Alliance for Water Efficiency Board. “The nation needs the kind of detailed information that the Resource Library will provide to help address increasing water shortages, while saving the utilities and consumers money at the same time.”

The Resource Library is intended as a one-stop shop for water efficient product and program information. Library sections cover residential plumbing and appliances, toilet testing, landscape and irrigation, commercial and industrial water conservation, water rates and rate structures, water loss control, codes and standards, drought planning, and numerous other topics. Research reports, published documents, and case studies are included, providing a comprehensive picture of what water efficiency measures prove to be the most successful, and how water utilities and consumers can best achieve water efficient use. Upcoming features being added to the site are state by state summaries and an on-line discussion forum.

“We are thrilled to finally have such a nationwide resource on water efficiency and sustainable water use,” said Mary Ann Dickinson, Executive Director of the Alliance for Water Efficiency. “We view the Resource Library to be a very significant step toward promoting greater water-efficiency, which will help water utilities reduce the costs of needed infrastructure and help avoid the need for new and more expensive water supply options.”

The Alliance for Water Efficiency is a new non-profit organization created in 2006 and devoted to promoting water efficiency programs in the United States. Funding and support to build the Resource Library web site were provided by the membership of the Alliance for Water Efficiency as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Information will continue to be added to update the web site on a daily basis.

www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org
http://www.epa.gov/watersense

For more information:
Contact: Mary Ann Dickinson, Executive Director / maryann@a4we.org; Phone: 866-730-A4WE
Contact: Enesta Jones, EPA Press Office / jones.enesta@epa.gov; Office phone: 202-564-4355

Article reprinted courtesy of AWE.

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