NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – New Mexico is now nearly a year into a major, 50-year plan to address the state’s water challenges. KRQE News 13 took a look at what leaders are doing to meet that plan on Wednesday.
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A dry Rio Grande through the metro is just one reminder of the continued strain on water in New Mexico. Since January, the state has earmarked nearly $400 million for various water projects. “The punch line that you’ve heard before is we may be facing on the order of 25 percent less water in the future,” said Tanya Trujillo, Deputy State Engineer, OSE.
They’re getting started on addressing New Mexico’s water shortage, a problem that’s expected to take decades to solve. “This whole 50-year water action plan is not about proposing something, it’s about getting it done,” said John Rhoderick, Deputy Secretary for Administration, NMED.
Facing lawmakers on Wednesday, New Mexico’s Environmental Department and State Engineer detailed elements of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s proposed 50-year water plan. The plan includes a long list of ideas, from conserving water to finding new supply and protecting existing watersheds. “The goal is to have boots on the ground and make something happen,” said Rhoderick.
One of the biggest elements the state is looking to tackle is how to cut down on leaky city water infrastructure. “That utilizes satellite imaging to look at a community and look at the ground and identify potential leaks using that satellite information,” said Rhoderick.
Using the technology now to find leaks in Truth or Consequences and Cloudcroft, officials said they’ve seen a 90% success rate. “It will wind up saving them in the neighborhood of 150 million gallons of finished water, now that they’ve closed those leaks,” said Rhoderick.
Some lawmakers feel it’s a good start, but there’s much more to do. “It looks to me like everything else we’re doing, brackish water and fixing leaks in community water systems and such, not is just nibbling around the edges,” said Senator Larry Scott (R-Hobbs).
Nearly $64 million of state water project funding is earmarked for protection and restoration, including about $20 million for cleaning up contaminated sites. Click this link to read the state’s 50-year water plan.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
