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Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future

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Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future Volume I: Main Text and Appendices Water 2120: Securing Our Water Future Executive Summary ES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • Conservation and a shift to direct use of Executive Summary surface water over the last decade have enabled substantial recovery in The Albuquerque Albuquerque’s depleted aquifer, providing Bernalillo County flexibility in planning for the future. Water Utility Authority works to • Under the baseline scenario, Albuquerque provide reliable, has sufficient supplies in its current high-quality, portfolio of groundwater and surface affordable, and water to serve a growing community, even in a drier future, through at least the sustainable water 2060s under the worst-case scenario; and supply, wastewater collection treatment, and well into the 2080s under the Medium reuse systems to support a healthy, Demand/Medium Growth scenario environmentally sustainable, and economically (see Table ES-1). viable community. Water 2120 outlines a plan • to ensure success over the next century. Prudent future investments in conservation, aquifer storage, stormwater capture, wastewater reuse, and other Key Findings and supply portfolio and water storage options can extend existing supplies for Recommendations decades longer under a variety of • Resilience in the face of uncertainty in scenarios, providing a reliable water both future supply and demand requires supply for our community’s future while preparing for a range of possible water preserving our aquifer as an emergency supply and demand scenarios. reserve. Table ES-1. Summary of Metrics for Evaluating Current Practices under the Baseline Scenario Metric Measure LH MM HL Unit Average production well drawdown, Aquifer Drawdown 137 203 234 ft year 2120 Supply Gap First year new supply needed --1 2088 2062 year Average annual new supply needed, Supply Gap 0 38,000 65,000 ac-ft 2100-2120 Average annual available return flow, Available Return Flow 13,195 7,323 9,358 ac-ft 2040-2120 Notes: 1 Under the LH scenario, no additional water supplies are needed during the planning period ending 2120 LH = “Low” water demand, “High” water supply planning scenario MM = “Medium” water demand, “Medium” water supply planning scenario HL = “High” water demand, “Low” water supply planning scenario ft = feet ac-ft = acre-feet EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | 1 WATER 2120: SECURING OUR WATER FUTURE Until recently, Albuquerque could only make Managing the Present direct use of its groundwater, reducing The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water management flexibility and leaving the Utility Authority (Water Authority), New community’s long-term water sustainability at Mexico’s largest municipal water utility, risk. The 2008 completion of Albuquerque’s serves 660,000 customers in the City of $500 million San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Albuquerque and surrounding areas of Project along with two water reuse and Bernalillo County area with water and reclamation projects allowed direct use of wastewater services. surface water for the first time since Formed in 2003 as the successor to the City of Albuquerque residents in the 1800s hauled Albuquerque’s municipal water utility, the river water to their homes in barrels. A Water Authority inherited an ambitious diversion near Alameda on Albuquerque’s agenda laid out by city leaders in the 1990s to northern end moves river water to a ensure a sustainable water supply future by treatment plant at Renaissance Center where reducing the community’s reliance on a it is purified for distribution across the rapidly declining aquifer. metropolitan area. Albuquerque’s drinking water comes from two In addition to the diversification of our water sources: the aquifer beneath the city, and San resources, conservation efforts begun in the Juan-Chama surface water which is imported mid-1990s cut per capita water use nearly in from the Colorado River basin into the Rio half (Figure ES-1), one of the most successful Grande Basin from the headwaters of the San conservation programs in the arid western Juan River in southern Colorado. United States. Figure ES-1. Albuquerque Per Capita Water Use, 1995-2015 Note: gpcd = gallons per capita per day 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Figure ES-2. Depth to Water Measurements for USGS location 350548106383901, within Albuquerque city limits. Note the steady increase in level after the start-up of the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project’s water treatment plant. With the success of those initiatives, Albuquerque dramatically reduced Planning for the Future: groundwater pumping – from 128,000 acre- Water Demand feet (ac-ft) per year (afy) in 1990 to just With no agricultural use or major water-using 41,000 afy in 2015, a two-thirds reduction in industries, the majority of the Water Utility’s the amount of groundwater used. supply goes to Albuquerque residents’ homes Together, conservation and use of surface and the offices where they work. As a result, water reversed the aquifer’s decline. estimating population growth is central to Groundwater levels are rising and to date long-range water supply planning. have risen an average of 15 feet since 2008 The economic downturn that began in 2008 (Figure ES-2). demonstrated the uncertainty in any such Modeling done for Water 2120 suggests the projections, significantly reducing growth in aquifer will continue to rise well into the the Albuquerque metropolitan area. 2020s. Those successes and the learning Recognizing the inherent uncertainty in experiences in both aquifer management and picking a number, Water 2120 developed Low conservation programs that went with them Demand, Medium Demand, and High Demand have opened Albuquerque’s range of policy scenarios, based on population growth, as options to meet our future water needs. inputs to its long-term water demand models. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | 3 WATER 2120: SECURING OUR WATER FUTURE The result is an estimated population of time. A warming climate may increase between 943,000 and 1.15 million in 2060, outdoor irrigation requirements, driving it up. and between 1.3 million and 1.8 million in New businesses and industries also may place 2120. Forecasts of per capita water use also increased demand on water supplies. are inherently uncertain. Combining those uncertainties in both New homes and businesses generally use less population and per capita use yields an water because of efficiency improvements in estimated baseline total water demand in appliances and changes in landscaping 2120 of between 200,000 and 270,000 afy practices, driving per capita use down over (Figure ES-3). Figure ES-3. Actual and Projected Annual Total Water Demand Note: ac-ft = acre-feet 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY storage opportunities they represent while Planning for the Future: also being prepared for sustained dry periods, Water Supply which would reduce the available surface Planning for a sustainable and resilient water supplies and require greater reliance on groundwater reserves. Albuquerque water supply for the future begins with an assessment of current water Based on climate simulations done by the supplies. Albuquerque’s water comes from United States Bureau of Reclamation three basic sources: (Reclamation), Water 2120’s High Supply, • Surface water flowing through New Medium Supply, and Low Supply estimates of Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley, San Juan-Chama water supply range from 100 including percent of Albuquerque’s annual allocation to 75 percent. Modeling also considered the - Colorado River Basin water, imported impact of reduced native Rio Grande flows to across the continental divide via the determine the need to return to groundwater San Juan-Chama Project use to meet community water needs under various scenarios. - Native Rio Grande water rights • Wastewater from the Water Authority’s Managing the Aquifer reclamation facilities, the result of “non- Groundwater is a highly valuable resource to consumptive” indoor water use in the Water Authority and an integral part of its Albuquerque homes water supply portfolio. A key attribute of • Groundwater pumped from the aquifer groundwater is its resilience: groundwater beneath the city availability does not significantly change in response to drought. As such, it is a critical Diversity of sources and adaptability in and relatively low-cost supply during times of managing them is one of the keys to a resilient reduced surface water availability. community water supply. Surface and groundwater provide the Water Authority The response of the aquifer to historical with that capacity. The two supplies are groundwater pumping has provided valuable managed conjunctively, with surface water information about the dynamic nature of the now Albuquerque’s primary water source and aquifer. Water 2120 includes a Groundwater the aquifer a secondary resource that Reserve Management Plan (GRMP) that provides security in times of surface water utilizes this new information to ensure that scarcity. The aquifer rises in times of sufficient the Water Authority relies on renewable surface supplies (as has happened from 2008 groundwater. The GRMP lays out a strategy to the present), with groundwater providing for utilizing this renewable resource over the the necessary supplies during times of surface next century by water scarcity (See Chapter 4, Albuquerque’s • setting a limit on how much water can be Groundwater Reserve Management Plan). safely pumped to avoid irreversible Surface water supplies will be affected by subsidence caused when too much water natural variability and climate change. is removed from the aquifer;
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