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Dispatches From the Santa Fe Drought

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Hitting the Streets With a Water Cop

Posted Tuesday, May 28, 2002, at 2:10 PM ET

Alex Heard is the editorial director of Outside magazine. He will file three dispatches on the drought in Santa Fe.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Hitting the Streets With a Water Cop

Posted Tuesday, May 28, 2002, at 2:10 PM ET

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Alex Heard is the editorial director of Outside magazine. He will file three dispatches on the drought in Santa Fe.

COMMENTS

Notes From The Fray Editor:

This article was largely read by those with specific knowledge of the area, or of droughts elsewhere, so there was much well-informed discussion: for instance Keith M. Ellis's contribution. However we are not completely sure about Wayne Palmer's claim that a "city charter dating back to the Aztec days… states in times of extreme drought citizens will be selected for sacrifice at the city's temples. Beware! Your blood may soon be used to maintain the turf on the back nine!" After reading Mitch's post, below, we're getting quite worried about all this bloodthirstiness. On a calmer note, Kit (borrowing the Slate name Cranky Gardener) recommends prayer, and finding more suitable plants.

Reader Comments From The Fray:

Golf courses in the Southwest make me cringe, but that's no reason for an average homeowner to defy nature too. You have elected to live in a part of the country that does not naturally support the kind of greenery we can grow in more temperate zones. You have to take the bad with the good. A sense that "I'm entitled too" is no excuse. Grow a rock garden and feel that you, at least, are not the enemy of the very ground you live on. I mean, does anyone else feel that rose bushes and golf course, and other non-native high-water use plants are worth sacrificing for water you can actually drink? None of us is getting any more than we've got right now.

--Robin Hoffman

(To find or answer this post, click here.)

Just wanted to point out that the need for rationing, "water cops", and urges toward civil disobedience are all signs of a legislated economic disconnect. In this case I am guessing that the price the citizens of Santa Fe pay for water is not allowed to fluctuate according to the supply of water. If it were, the current situation would to some extent correct itself; higher water bills would tell homeowners whether to use their water for watering the lawn or just for drinking. People who really wanted a green lawn would pay extra for it, and no one else would be hurt by their extravagance. As it is, the price is almost certainly set too low, which means the more you use(/waste), the better a deal you get! Not the best way to promote a harmonious and civil society, I think...

If the government was not responsible for the distribution of water there would be less chance of unscrupulous favoritist deals such as the golf course apparently got. If the golf course had to negotiate their long-term contract with a private water company instead of a public one, at the very least they would have paid a fair price for their guaranteed supply(not that private companies can't sometimes make mistakes, too). It is also likely that there would be some provision for rationing their use in extreme drought years, without any need for angry homeowners tearing up their fairways.

--Night Shift Libertarian

(To find or answer this post, click here.)

I understand that paleometeorology studies in Northern New Mexico suggest that the past 200 years have been unusually wet; that the current "drought" represents by far and away the normal rainfall pattern over the past 10,000 years. Probably explains why the Spanish explorers didn't encounter much grass (much less roses) growing in Santa Fe. If this does in fact represent the regression to the mean, and even our middle class Outside magazine editor already harboring revolutionary sentiments, Northern New Mexico politics should become an interesting spectator blood sport. (Apparently, the last 4 Corners population to get pushed out by drought, the Anazazi, turned to cannibalism before they disappeared.)

--Mitch

(To find or answer this post, click here.)

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