Local officials say cities set for water this summer

Despite triple-digit temperatures, officials in Clovis and Portales are not worried about running out of water this summer.

City of Portales Public Works Director John DeSha said Portales residents and entities have done such a good job with conservation efforts in the last few years that Portales is in a much better position with water now than it has been in years with a steady decline in water consumption — it has dropped about 20 percent in the last few years.

“One of the nice things that ENMU (Eastern New Mexico University) has been very proactive in putting in are local (water) fixtures; that’s made a dramatic difference for us,” he said. “Right now, it’s not as drastic because the Coke plant has closed up; we don’t have Abengoa on, and the high school is not watering their fields from the distribution system; we’re selling them water from one of our wells that’s not on the distribution system.”

DeSha said the city is also not seeing people water their yards as often as they did in the past because most residents seem to be adhering to the voluntary watering schedule — odd numbered addresses watering on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and even numbered addresses watering on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the early morning or evening. That, and cooler temperatures and rain in May also made a difference.

DeSha said the city usually starts seeing water consumption increase at the end of April, because people are putting in gardens and filling swimming pools and beginning to water their yards.

On average, he said the city uses about 2 million gallons of water per day most of the year, but 3 million or 3.5 million gallons per day when it’s hot. The summertime increase is not enough to put the city in an emergency situation with water, DeSha said.

In fact, he said, he has only seen Portales in such a situation once since he came on board as director in 2011.

If an emergency situation were to arise, “the first thing we try to do is make contact with the people; people who are high consumers, we might go talk to face-to-face,” he said. “If it continues on, then we take it to the (city) council and start putting in measures from our drought contingency plan.”

Those measures include mandatory watering restrictions all the way to water rationing.

“It would be really drastic circumstances, and I really don’t see us getting to that point,” he said. “Right now, we’re in a very good place with both water conservation and what we’re able to produce.”

Officials with EPCOR, the Clovis water company, are also not concerned, according to EPCOR communications specialist Anna Garcia.

“We are confident that we will meet all of our customers’ water demands through this heat wave,” said Garcia in an email response. “Water use typically follows the weather, so we expect to pump more water over the next couple of days.”

Garcia said a comprehensive water conservation program and watering schedule are what help keep water demand lower on high-heat days.

“We’ve been working hard to ensure that we meet 100 percent of customer demand all of the time,” she said. “We have been adding to our supply through our water leasing program — we have added numerous wells and will be adding more over time.”

Garcia said EPCOR has kept water consumption from becoming too high for over 12 years.

“If water use is too high, we work with the city on voluntary water use reductions. If voluntary measures are not enough, mandatory use reductions may be asked for under the city’s drought ordinance,” she said. “If this were to happen, we will coordinate with the city on the timing and extent.”