Epa Label Could Help Protect Aquifer
By STACI MATLOCK, MAP BY ALEXANDER USATINE
Agency says water under Santa Fe is area’s primary source for drinking
Aquifer: Effect of EPA label unclear
Some 3,000 square miles of underground water extending from Tres Piedras to south of Santa Fe has been designated a sole-drinking- water-source aquifer by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a move that could provide more protections to a key area water supply.
The aquifer underlies Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Espanola and eight pueblos, serving as the primary drinking water source for more than 170,000 people in three counties.
It took a Santa Fe artist and a retired hydrologist seven years of work to see the sole-source designation become
reality. The EPA granted the designation Jan. 10. It is the first sole-source aquifer designated in the state.
Elaine Cimino, an artist and director of Citizens for Environmental Safeguards, worked with longtime New Mexico hydrologist Zane Spiegel on completing the application. “I believed that our water was in peril,” Cimino said about her long effort. “This should have been done 30 years ago when this (EPA) program was first initiated.”
The designation gives the EPA authority to review and modify any projects funded by federal financial aid such as loans or grants, proposed over the aquifer. “What we’re looking for is anything that might contaminate the aquifer,” said Michael Bechdol, an EPA environmental scientist.
Under the designation, the EPA cannot review projects funded through congressional appropriations or contracts, which is the case for much of the work at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
What the designation means for the state Environment Department is anyone’s guess at this point. “The designation is uncharted territory for us,” said Dennis McQuillan, environmental health manager at the state Environment Department. “Any level of additional protection is good in concept.”
Bechdol said it took the EPA 18 months to review the 86-page application, more than twice as long as usual, before making a decision. “One of the biggest challenges we faced was figuring out water rights in New Mexico and all the proposed alternate water sources,” Bechdol said.
The EPA bases the designation on three criteria.
First, the aquifer must be defined. In this case, the Espanola Basin aquifer system is made up of eight hydrologically linked aquifers. Those aquifers share water between and through layers of rocks, sediment and fault lines stretching hundreds of feet thick.
The first time Cimino submitted a sole-source-aquifer application, it was rejected in part because the aquifer system was ill-defined, according to McQuillan. This time, the state Environment Department backed her application with greater detail on the subsurface waters.
The aquifer must be the sole drinking water source for more than half of the people within its boundaries to meet the EPA’s second criteria. In the Espanola Basin, almost all drinking water comes from wells, except for some of Santa Fe’s water, which comes from two mountain reservoirs.
Finally, the EPA looks at whether any other reliable sources of drinking water are available in case the aquifer becomes contaminated. Despite planned surface water diversion projects in Espanola, Pojoaque, Los Alamos and Santa Fe, EPA staff found the aquifer would remain a primary source of drinking water in the years ahead. Many of those diversion projects, except Santa Fe’s Buckman Direct Diversion project, lack funding to begin construction. “There’s just not enough other water sources there,” Bechdol said.
Water in the Espanola Basin aquifer system faces contamination from natural and man-made causes, according to Cimino and Spiegel. Man-made contaminants such as nitrates from leaking septic tanks, underground storage tanks and perchlorates from industries can spread through underground water. Natural contaminants such as uranium and arsenic can leach into groundwater from surrounding rocks. Both types of contaminants must be treated before drinking water is delivered to customers.
EPA received 12 comment letters about the application last year, half in favor and half opposed to the Espanola Basin sole-source- aquifer designation.
Cimino said she hopes the designation could actually help cities get money for water-treatment plants and surface water diversion projects like the Buckman Direct Diversion. The sole-source-aquifer program began in the mid-1970s under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The Edwards Aquifer near San Antonio, Texas, was the first aquifer to receive the designation, and more than 70 aquifers around the country have been designated since.
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