It rained on Memorial Day! Granted, it only rained about one-hundredth of an inch, but here in Santa Fe we’ll take it. I knew something was up when my cat walked through his pet door at 6 a.m., issuing a unique complaino-yowl that means, “I’m wet, dammit.” After blindly squeeze-testing his fur bodytard—soggy!—I ran outside in boots and pajamas and made key technical adjustments to my rain barrels (lids off, gutter-attachment thingees that shoot water into them in), and then sat back smiling.
Alas, this scant drippage won’t save us from looming drought-caused restrictions that will forbid outdoor plant watering (known around here as Stage 4). And with temperatures expected to hit 90 later this week, I’m still looking for people to blame. Yes, I blame myself (I know I shouldn’t have eight thirsty rose bushes in my yard, but hey, I didn’t put them there, and anything new I plant is drought-tolerant) and the Las Campanas golf course. But let us not forget the city of Santa Fe itself.
For years the mayor and City Council have ignored the warnings of Santa Fe’s large and vocal PC chorus that a water disaster was coming. Now that it’s here, they’re scrambling too late to react—considering ideas like a municipal water budget that would regulate new construction, something they’ve never seemed inclined to do before—all the while making it clear that homeowners will take it on the chin hardest if Stage 4 hits. The City Council is already considering the creation of a new Stage 5, which looks like a way to delay the full Stage 4 ban on new construction. For homeowners, Stage 4 would still mean the same thing: no wawa in the yard.
Meanwhile, the city is offering ameliorative measures like a low-cost, low-flush-toilet installation program. That’s an OK idea, but it comes with infantilizing propaganda in the form of an ad campaign featuring jaunty, limbo-dancing water droplets who ask: “How Low Can You Flow?” (Or was it “Go”?) And the city can’t seem to keep water records properly, so it’s hard to have faith in its oversight. The New Mexican recently checked out the water company’s list of the largest private water users for March. Big Gulper No. 3, a residence that supposedly drank 212,600 gallons, is an empty rental property with no water service at all.
So, does this mean I’m going to cheat? Nah. I was thinking about it—my scheme was to fill up rain barrels in the wee small hours. But I decided not to last week, after I made the rounds with Chandra “The Bulldog” Marsh, one of the city’s overstressed water cops. The Bulldog made it clear that such a stunt is not foolproof—”I’ve got a chlorine detector,” she said, “so I can tell when rain barrels have been filled from a hose”—but the real reason I decided to stay straight was because I’d hate to disappoint her.
The Bulldog has a tough job that makes people angry—writing $20 tickets for infractions that include watering on the wrong day, washing cars at home, watering the pavement, and watering without an on/off nozzle. She says she’s been personally vilified in a letter-to-the-editor by a local school coach, the argument being that she’s somehow responsible if turfless football fields lead to injured athletes. Once, she told me, a water scofflaw pounded on her car window, yelling, “Get off my fucking property.” She says that when we go to Stage 4—when, not if—she will stop making rounds by herself because she’s worried about physical assault.
The Bulldog deserves better than that. She’s a nice person, and on our tour of duty, she mostly wrote up institutions and offices, letting a few addled citizens off with a warning. PNM (the gas and electric utility) was watering its sidewalks with poorly adjusted sprinklers; a state office building was flooding a patch of dead grass; and the historic downtown plaza—which the city turfed with cool-climate sod last year—had gotten watered pretty thoroughly overnight, judging by the puddles on the sidewalks. Later that morning, the Bulldog had mercy on a woman who seemed genuinely ignorant of the law and was using a no-nozzle hose to water plants at a church.
In our conversation, the Bulldog made it clear that individual behaviors by people like me really matter. City lameness notwithstanding, we might have avoided Stage 4 if everybody in town had wised up in various ways: Giving up on the dead-end dream of East-Coast-style yards in the desert; realizing that “water saving” drip-irrigation systems don’t “save” anything if you leave them on for 10 hours. And really thinking hard about watering—doing it by hand and taking the time to see if plants need it or could wait another week.
But we’ve ignored her wisdom, and now we must pay. For my part, I’m planning some triage, letting my also-ran plants croak—Goodbye, valerian! So long, Johnny-Jump-Up!—while doing every legal thing I can to make sure the rose bushes live to see 2003. Even if I have to keep them watered with my own sweat, slobber, and tears.