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Today, the Santa Fe County Board of County Commissioners will be considering a long-awaited plan to manage water resources in Santa Fe County. The backbone of the plan is a conjunctive use strategy (use of both river water from the Rio Grande and underground water from the aquifer).  The benefits of the plan are:

• Protection of Local Water Resources: By using surface water from the Rio Grande as the primary source of supply, use of local ground water resources will be minimized and water in the local aquifer will be preserved.
• Reliability of Supply: By establishing a back-up groundwater supply, water supplied by the County water utility will be made reliable even during those times when Rio Grande surface supplies may be inadequate, because of drought or other conditions affecting river flow, including the potential impact of climate change.
• Optimization of Public Assets: By proposing a multi-year rolling average for groundwater use, the plan will dramatically reduce the number of local groundwater rights needed by the County and will optimize the rights already controlled by the County.
• Benefits to Other Water Rights Holders: By shifting the predominant source of supply from local groundwater to Rio Grande surface supplies, the effects of depletion on area springs and surface water tributaries will be reduced.
• Environmental Benefits: In addition to reducing depletions to springs and tributaries, the plan contains a specific proposal to increase flows in the Santa Fe River.
• Regional Collaboration: A critical foundation of the plan is regional collaboration with other stakeholders, including acequia associations, the City of Santa Fe and the Pueblos of Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso and Tesuque.