Water for New Mexico

How much water is there for New Mexicans? Learn the science affecting our water-resource decisions.

E&PS 110 - Fall 2006

Freshman Learning Community, Freshman Seminar - Students co-enroll in English 101 (section 619)

Dr. Gary A. Smith

gsmith@unm.edu

Text: Our Water Resources: An Overview for New Mexicans, by William J. Stone, 2001, NM Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. There will also be supplemental readings that can be downloaded from the course WebCT site.

Course Description

New Mexico experiences drought! Albuquerque implements a new drinking water plan! Wells in small towns run dry! The headlines tell us that our water is in short supply while demand increases. Science forms the framework for the management decisions. We will learn how scientists measure the water budget, how water moves within and between streams and ground-water aquifers, and the natural and human factors affecting water quality. We will apply this knowledge to understand the past, current, and future water-management decisions in New Mexico, especially in and near Albuquerque. Knowledge from diverse readings leads to in-class experiments, group problem solving and discussion, and writing short research papers. Ultimately, we will use an interactive computer model to test our own scenarios for future water use.

Partial List of Topics

Many issues must be integrated:

1. Geology: How much water and where (surface vs. groundwater)? How "good" and how big is the aquifer? What geologic factors affect water quality?

2. Water Rights Law: Who gets what water?

3. Engineering: How to obtain the water, how to distribute the water, how to treat the water?

4. Politics: How does water supply limit economic growth? How do we plan? How do we conserve?

5. Economics: How do we pay for our water? How much is it "worth"?

Surface Water

A) The history of surface-water use in New Mexico, from pueblo farming, to acequia communities, to the conservancy districts.

B) Distribution of Rio Grande water rights

C) Addition of San Juan - Chama Project water to Albuquerque's water supply

D) Why hasn’t Albuquerque been using surface water and what are the new plans to start using it?

E) What is the impact of the Endangered Species Act on water use?

F) How does drought impact water supply? Is the current drought an unusual event?

Ground Water

A) What makes a good aquifer?

B) Early geologic view of the aquifer below Albuquerque ("as big as Lake Superior")

C) New (1992 to present) geologic view of the aquifer ("oops, it isn’t that big!")

D) Ground water consumption and recharge

1) How much does the City of Albuquerque pump?

2) How does groundwater pumping affect the Rio Grande and Albuquerque’s surface water rights?

3) How does consumption compare to recharge?

4) What is happening to the water table?

5) What are the potential effects of water-table decline?

E) Conservation?

Ground Water Quality

A) Advantages of using ground water over surface water for drinking-water supplies

B) Contamination of the aquifer – Albuquerque’s Superfund Sites

C) New EPA standards for arsenic

1) Where does the arsenic come from?

2) The consequences of new standards for Albuquerque’s water supply

D) What is the fate of contamination from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories?

Integration

Each student will be part of a team that develops and tests their own scenario for future water use in the middle Rio Grande valley.