The meeting started with a prayer.
“Help us to use the water that we have to the best of our capacity to help everyone,” implored a man speaking in front of Estancia residents at an emergency town meeting Wednesday.
The meeting was called in response to a water supply crisis. It’s not a water quality issue, Mayor Nathan Dial said at the meeting — but after a primary well started malfunctioning last year, the infrastructure to reach the town’s groundwater is limited. About six weeks ago, Dial said, the well level started dropping.
“Right now, the issue we’re having is what we’re producing doesn’t meet what we’re consuming,” Dial said as he urged residents to conserve water.
Last summer, town officials put out a similar plea.
Agricultural communities in the Estancia Basin, which includes Moriarty, Edgewood and Estancia, rely on limited groundwater, according to the state’s aquifer mapping program.
That supply is facing additional pressure as neighboring areas swell.
“As the Albuquerque metro area continues to grow, communities along the east flank of the Manzano Mountains will need more and more groundwater supplies as well,” a 2023 map states.
Hopes for a good snowpack this year have all but melted away; an April 28 weekly weather briefing from the National Weather Service showed that around the state, the snowpack is between zero and 47% of the regular amount this time of year.
The vast majority of water in the Estancia Basin is pumped from a single aquifer, which in 2021 had been experiencing declines of around 5 feet for several years, according to a guidance document from the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer.
Teacher and lifelong Estancia resident Julie Morales wrote in a text to The New Mexican the community often experiences water breaks and low pressure. This is the second time Morales remembers being asked to conserve water.
Morales teaches her students about water issues and tries to conserve water by taking short showers. While the water warms up, she saves it to water plants.
But this year, she’s not keeping a garden.
Morales thinks there needs to be bigger action, including infrastructure upgrades.
“If we get a new well that would be a great start,” Morales wrote. “I think many old towns and cities need to fix infrastructure so we don’t have leaks and water main breaks.”
Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, a private company that operates the Torrance County Detention Facility, said officials were notified by the town Tuesday about problems with the water supply.
The jail, which has a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants at the center, has the capacity to hold up to 900 people, and around 150 people work at the site. ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service and Torrance County are all aware of the situation and the facility’s contingency plans, Gustin wrote.
“Upon learning of this issue, we immediately activated our emergency operation center with the goal of mobilizing any needed resources and ensuring the continuity of our safe and secure operations,” Gustin wrote in an email to The New Mexican.
Gustin dispelled rumors the jail had been left without water. But he wrote the jail changed operations to reduce water consumption. Laundry services and showers were put on a schedule, Gustin wrote, and water was provided to help flush toilets.
Bottled water has also been provided to inmates in addition to drinking water containers, Gustin wrote.
“At no point have those in our care been without drinking water,” he wrote.
The detention facility closed in 2017 because of a low inmate population but reopened two years later.
At the Wednesday meeting, Dial said the town was supposed to get a new well drilled in 2017. But he said when the detention facility closed, the state approval to drill the well was pulled as the area’s water needs decreased.
“They turned the money off,” Dial said. “Well, [the jail] was reopened and they didn’t say, ‘Your need’s back, here’s your money.’ We had to start this whole process like it never was approved.”
The town is planning to do two things: fix one of the old wells to increase capacity, and drill a new well.
But first, enough water has to be pumped into water tanks to tide the town through the construction, which is expected to take several weeks.
“We need to get enough water in the tank so when we pull that well, you guys will still be able to turn on your faucet,” Dial said.
Torrance County Manager Jordan Barela said the detention facility is a major water user. Besides the facility, Barela said, most use is residential.
Once the tank is full enough to start construction, Barela said it will likely take a couple of weeks to refurbish the wells. But it will take longer to get a new well in place.
“The digging of the new well is a much bigger and more expensive process,” Barela said.
Estancia Board of Trustees member and former Mayor Morrow Hall said the plan will solve the problem “for the time being.” But it’s not a permanent solution, Hall said.
Hall has lived in Estancia for 75 years. In that time, he’s watched the community grow — and the climate dry.
“We’re sitting in a teacup filled with water and sticking straws in and sucking it out,” Hall said.
If climate change progresses, Hall said, the basin won’t receive enough snow or rainfall to recharge. That leaves two options, Hall said: Bring in water from somewhere else or leave.
The problem isn’t exclusive to Estancia.
“This is one measle in a case of measles all across the Southwest,” Hall said. “This is everybody’s problem out here.”
