Summary
Galisteo Basin Preserve
The Commonweal Conservancy has something at its planned 11,768- acre Galisteo Basin Preserve that Eldorado might want: water wells. Conservancy president Ted Harrison plans to ask the Eldorado Area Water and Sanitation District on March 7 to consider pumping water from the conservancy's land in exchange for water rights to supply the conservancy's proposed 373-acre Village at Galisteo Basin Preserve. The conservancy was founded as a conservation-and- community-development group in 2003 with an ambition to acquire most of an old ranch along U.S. 285 near Lamy. Operation of a natural preserve at Thornton Ranch by the conservancy's plan will be funded by the development of the village project, which would eventually have 965 residences and 150,000 square feet of commercial or shared space, including a new charter high school. An initial offering of 25 lots from 13 to 265 acres in two subdivisions at the ranch let the conservancy purchase the village site and the first two of five large parcels of conservation acreage. Harrison said the conservancy is under contract to acquire nearly 17,000 acres of the former ranch. In addition to the 12,000-acre publicly accessible preserve, nearly 3,000 acres are set aside as private conservation land. Robust sales of lots at New Moon Overlook and among five larger undeveloped off-the-grid lots at the West Basin also underwrote development of a village master plan, which the conservancy submitted to the county in January. According to that plan, an agreement with the Eldorado Water and Sanitation District could meet the water needs of the village during the next decade. By estimates in the conservancy's plan, the Eldorado water district administers annual rights to 900 acre-feet of water but uses only about 600 acre-feet to supply residents and customers. District president Mary Raynard said the board is researching the extent of its water rights. EDU, the company that formerly operated the Eldorado water system, claimed as much as 3,000 acre-feet, but the Office of the State Engineer never confirmed rights to that much water. The district can't assure long-term production of even 600 acre-feet from existing wells. "In the long term, we're looking to diversify our supply," Raynard said. "We don't know how long our supply will last. If they can provide some water supply, that would be a benefit." Surrounded by thousands of acres of undeveloped land at the preserve, wells there could be pumped with little impact on any nearby wells, the village plan suggests. But the conservancy's water rights, even after eventual purchase of 17,000 acres of the ranch, would be limited to 36 acre-feet from 10 agricultural wells already there and about 15 acre-feet for a community water system that serves 20 lots at New Moon Overlook. The Eldorado water board doesn't know even basic details of what the conservancy might propose, including how far pipes would need to run to connect to the new project. In general, Raynard said, the board is interested in working with area developers to avoid conflicts and to better control water use in the area. If not from Eldorado, the village plan says water rights could be purchased from other sources. "We need to focus on water rights that are in the Galisteo Basin," Harrison said. "There are families that have established water rights over the past century. Those are the rights that are being transferred." Water-conservation planning let the conservancy reduce its annual household water budgets to .17 acre-feet or less, compared to .25 acre-feet typical throughout Santa Fe County. Treated wastewater would be distributed throughout the village for irrigation, and the conservancy is seeking approval to pipe treated wastewater into homes to flush toilets. The conservancy is also studying the potential for injecting treated wastewater into the ground to gain water-rights credits. Under review by the Santa Fe County Planning and Land Use Department, the Village at Galisteo Basin master plan will be considered at county hearings in May. Harrison will meet with Eldorado water directors at7 p.m. Tuesday at the Eldorado Community Center. The district board encourages residents of Eldorado and other communities along the U.S. 285 corridor to attend.See the full content of this document
Extract
Conservancy Offers Water in Plan
Contact David Collins at davidcolli@gmail.com.
Gali...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
