Every Drop Now Counts in Cloudcroft
Water demand exceeds production as village calls for Level 3 restrictions
As of Wednesday, Cloudcroft is under Level 3 Water Restrictions, with the village's water plant unable to keep pace with demand.
Public Works Supervisor Joe John (JJ) Carrizal reports the town uses 170 gallons per minute while the plant can only produce 150—a shortfall that prompted Mayor Tim King to sign the emergency measure into effect on January 13th.
In a case of supply and demand gone wrong, the Village of Cloudcroft’s current water usage outpaces our production abilities. In January. With recent snowfall.
Carrizal spoke with the Reader:
“Our water tank was about 3 1/2 feet during the weekend, so we’re transferring water into there. We’re doing everything we can to help the situation, but people need to realize we don’t have water up here.”
“Maybe people will realize, ‘Oh, level three, okay, maybe I won’t take a 20-minute shower. Maybe I’ll turn off the water after dishes and not let it run.’ Do what you can to save water.”
Over the summer, the village council voted to grant mayoral power to enact restrictions. Mayor King’s statement on “Urgent Water Restrictions” is below.
Leaky Pipes
Public Works located and shut off two major water leaks in residential homes earlier this week. According to Carrizal, the leaks lost nearly 14,000 gallons a day, or around 400,000 gallons a month.
“Are there more leaks? Yes, we’re going to work on finding them today; we’re going to turn on our computer and go around and look for these leaks,” he says.
Public Works currently uses Pix4D Catch technology to discover leaks, which helps them accurately pinpoint where to dig up and repair pipes. Tech-savvy Mayor King explains, “They use an audio sensor to ‘listen’ to the pipes to see if they can find the leak.”
Busy Seasons Ahead
Late winter and early spring tend to be Cloudcroft’s slowest tourism seasons. When asked about the upcoming typically busy season, Carrizal says, “It’s gonna be a tough summer.”
Carrizal confirmed that the village’s recently hired consultant, Karen Guitierrez of High Water Mark LLC, is aware of the village’s dire water situation.
“We’re teaming up with Karen. She’s doing our finances right now, but High Water Mark, their main thing is water. They help people’s water production and everything else. They have a meeting coming up with some of their team. Hopefully, they can help us.”
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Weighing Our Options
“We do have 825 acre-feet of water rights,” Carrizal says.
The problem: near-impossible costs and constraints of drilling wells and piping in water.
“How long is it going to take for the forest to let us even think about pursuing drilling? And then the state has to give us the ‘okay.’ Then we have to do testing. And how are we gonna treat it? We have to set up a little plant. We don’t even have money to buy parts,” says Carrizal.
“Where are we gonna get the money to do this? We don’t have that, so we need people to do their part. Aaron (Foster, Water Operator, Public Works) told me he had noticed the difference this summer when we were under water restrictions. All the people were saving water. That’s why I think with a level three water restriction, maybe somebody will say, Hey, I’m gonna help where I can.“
The Price of Water
The Village of Cloudcroft’s past administrations focused on the water issue, hoping to pioneer a Direct Potable Reuse program, which you can read more about here: Drip, Drip: PURe Water Project.
Due to costs and outdated equipment, the project never gained meaningful traction.
According to former Mayor Turner, Public Works’ recent initiative to preserve potable water by reusing purified grey water to flush out screens in the wastewater plant saves roughly 30,000 gallons a month.
With current water billing costs, the precious liquid resource is not fairly valued.
Local residents bear the brunt of a water shortage, compared to businesses that use a lot of water and have a large number of visitors. While the tourism industry helps Cloudcroft thrive, it doesn’t contribute much extra dough towards the water bill.
For every thousand gallons over 4,000 in usage, there is only a $6.27 price increase—not per gallon, but per thousand. Same for every thousand over 10,000: a paltry $7.86 extra per thousand gallons used—and that’s the last cap. Over 20,000 gallons, over a million, it’s all the same.
From Cloudcroft’s Code 7-1A-2: Water Rates:
“A. Established: All water sold by the village shall be sold at the following rates:
1. A minimum fee of Forty-Five Dollars and Twenty Cents ($45.20) plus tax per month for each water meter.
2. An additional fee of Six Dollars and Twenty-Seven Cents ($6.27) plus tax for each one thousand (1,000) gallons usage, or fraction thereof, of monthly metered water use from four thousand one (4,001) gallons to ten thousand (10,000) gallons, inclusive; and an additional Seven Dollars and Eighty-Six cents ($7.86) plus tax for each one thousand (1,000) gallons usage, or fraction thereof, of monthly metered water use greater than ten thousand (10,000) gallons.”
When every gallon is precious, why not value heavy water use as such?
Water, Fire
Cloudcroft area firefighting efforts tap into the village supply—our water was trucked out as part of the Moser Fire response and clean up, for example. (No complaints here!)
Will the water shortage and restrictions affect the Forest Service prescribed burns in the area?
Forest Service Assistant Fire Management Officer Matthew Barone and the Sacramento Hotshots crew are currently working on a prescribed burn in the Otero County slash pit located by Highways 244 and 82.
“I alerted the Forest Service about their controlled burn scheduled for this week. Matthew Barone has a great plan and is going to brief the crew about the water shortage,” Trustee Tabitha Foster told The Reader.
Barone checked in with the Reader with this update:
“We had county and Forest Service engine crews out (Wednesday) morning prepping it for ignition and lit it at 11:30 a.m. today. All went well; we’re just letting it burn down now. We’ll be out with personnel checking it over the next few weeks.”
If You’re Not Conservin’ Water, You Oughtta
By making simple changes like fixing leaks, shortening showers, turning off taps, and using water-efficient appliances, Cloudcrofters can reduce wasteful water usage and perhaps prevent over-taxing our water system’s ability to meet demand.
Every drop counts.
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