Measuring Albuquerque’s water successes

As I’ve written before, Albuquerque has made significant progress in cutting its water usage and reducing reliance on the region’s dwindling aquifer. But there’s been a nagging question, which I explored in this morning’s newspaper – are we doing enough?

One key to the progress is the switch to imported San Juan-Chama water, which is moved via a tunnel beneath the continental divide and down the Chama and Rio Grande to a diversion dam near Alameda. Using that water allows us to reduce our groundwater pumping. Which is good. But as I explained in my story this morning, the amount of water we’re getting from the project, four years in, is less than the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority has repeatedly projected.

In 2012, the drinking water project provided 43 percent of Albuquerque’s water. That seems to be significantly short of the goals set when the project was launched. But exactly what were those goals? It’s frankly hard to tell. Here’s a collection of references I used in preparing the column (emphasis added):

• The Water Utility’s 2008 budget plan (pdf): “The San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project will supply up to 70% of the metropolitan area’s future water.”
• The Utility’s 2009 budget (pdf): “”The San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project will supply up to 70% of the metropolitan area’s future water.”
• 2009 fact sheet (pdf): “”The San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project is celebrating its one-year anniversary. With 12 months of operation now in the history books, we can begin to take stock of the project and the impact it is having on water users in central New Mexico. Designed to preserve the Albuquerque area’s underground
  aquifer by employing surface water as a drinking water source, the Project delivered seven billion gallons to customers of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority in 2009. That’s approximately 21 percent of our total consumption. Plans call for that number to reach 50 percent in 2010 and around 90 percent the year after that.”
• The 2010 budget (pdf): “The San Juan-Chama Surface Water Treatment Plant will ramp up operation in Fiscal Year 2010 and will provide approximately 50% of the drinking water supplied to customers by the end of Fiscal Year 2010. The plan is to increase the amount of surface water in the system by approximately 25% per year until 100% of the drinking water is from treated surface water.”
• 2011 budget (pdf): “The San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project (DWP) is expected to increase surface water
  treatment to provide 50% of water supplied to the service area. The Authority will continue to operate two water supply systems, the surface water and the ground water systems. This dual system operation will continue into the future even though the primary source of supply will be the surface water from the DWP. It is anticipated that 75% of the area’s future water supply will be surface water from the DWP.”
• 2012 budget (pdf): “”The San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project (DWP) is expected to increase surface water
  treatment to provide 60% of water supplied to the service area.”