Water in the desert
In this week’s news section, reporter Jack King highlights a lack of transparency when it comes to the Dirt City’s water supply.
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority spent millions on a project that’s designed to take some of the strain off our aquifer. We divert water from the Colorado River Basin and add it to the Rio Grande. But the utility hasn’t met its relief objectives for 2009 and 2010, and the governing board had no idea, according to King’s story.
The utility’s promised to up its transparency game.
This week, County Commissioner Art De La Cruz wrote a letter to the Alibi defending the project. He writes:
First and foremost, after three years of project operation the U.S. Geological Survey is reporting that the aquifer is showing signs of rebound. According to the USGS New Mexico Water Science Center, increases in winter groundwater levels (which are most representative of aquifer condition) are being observed. This is consistent with predictions from model simulations wherein groundwater pumping was reduced in favor of using surface water. Given that the water-level trend had generally been downward through the early part of this decade, the reversal is an extremely positive development.
Read the rest of his letter in the next edition of the Alibi, which will be online tomorrow evening. And look for another article by King in the coming weeks.
