The City of Española will make some extra cash by selling its unused water stored in Abiquiú Reservoir to the Rio de Chama Acequia Association.
The contract, approved Feb. 11 by the Española City Council at its meeting, states the city will sell 986.31 acre feet of water for $100 per acre foot to the Association for a total of $98,631.
The Association represents 18 acequias below Abiquiú Dam, representing more than 500 families and irrigating about 5,000 acres of farmland, former Association president Tim Seaman wrote in an email.
“We will probably run out of water in late May this year according to the weather projections, so we will be praying for summer thunderstorms to get us through to October,” he wrote. “We will need every drop of Española’s water this year.”
The water from this sale comes from the San Juan-Chama Project. Water is transferred to New Mexico from the tributaries of the Colorado River and Española receives an annual allocation for municipal and industrial use. The city uses this water to offset groundwater pumping for its municipal water supply. This creates a water surplus, which the city is now selling to the Association.
While the council has routinely dealt with issues regarding city water from the San Juan-Chama Project, this is the first time it has had an opportunity to sell excess water for $98,000, City Attorney Frank Coppler said during the meeting.
This one-time sale does not impact the city’s water supply because it can continue to use San Juan-Chama Project water without effect, and the sale only deals with the surplus.
How it works
The water sold by the city is its surplus supply from 2023.
According to the contract, each year, the Bureau of Reclamation calculates the city’s storage of excess water in the Abiquiú Reservoir. On Jan. 1, 2024, the Bureau determined there was about 986 acre feet in surplus. The city deferred its leasing of the water to other parties while the Association obtained funding for this purchase.
The Association also took on the cost of any evaporation loss during the course of contract negotiations, it said.
The sale is possible through the positive relationships and organizing by the Association.
With support from the State of New Mexico, the Association created the Rio Chama Irrigation Reserve to purchase San Juan-Chama Project water that it then uses throughout the Middle Rio Grande Valley.
“[The Association] has also developed water sharing relationships with the Middle Rio Grande Conservation District and the City of Albuquerque that allow very efficient use of their reservoir releases when Rio Chama native water levels cannot meet [the Association’s] water demand,” Seaman wrote.
Funding for the water came from the American Rescue Plant Act of 2021 and Capital Outlay funds.
The Association has a long-term contract with Los Alamos County for its excess San Juan-Chama Project water, and hopes it can negotiate a similar contract with the city.
Seaman said that future purchases will be supported by New Mexico as part of the federal Ohkay Owingeh Rio Chama Water Rights Settlement Act of 2024.
This year is predicted to be very dry for Northern New Mexico, Seaman wrote. The Association expects to extend the 2025 irrigation season by about four weeks using the stored water it purchased from Los Alamos last year, along with the 2023 water purchased from the city and the future sale of the city’s 2024 surplus.
“Rio Chama farming families are indeed fortunate to have community support from both Española and Los Alamos to keep this valuable source of water in the Valley,” Seaman wrote.