Water banking: Essential to our future?

CLOVIS — The city of Clovis’ Master Water Assurance Plan is the work of a year and counting. And it fits into a large-scale sustainable water plan stretching back over half a century.

At this moment, most if not all local politicians point to the development of a sustainable water supply as the single most important issue facing the region in the coming decades. Which is to say that not every question on every interlacing aspect of that plan can likely be addressed in a single story, but taken in doses we can make our way there.

Number two of five action plans contained within the MWAP is water banking: the sale or perpetual leasing of water from agricultural wells that are turned off and eventually pumped at reduced capacity for domestic use. It’s a conservation bid intended to help see the city through the completion of the long-term Ute Pipeline Project and to preserve local water stores in possible years of drought after that pipeline is established.

Who is behind the water leasing or purchasing? The city of Clovis enters an agreement with participating landowners. The MWAP recommends seeking partnerships between Clovis, Curry County, EPCOR, the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority, the state and the federal government to “ensure completion of water leasing and/or purchasing and pipeline projects.”

Who participates? Any qualifying water rights owner willing and able to shut off their well(s) and presumably make a significant change in their water use, or non-use.

“We have the water the moment we (make an agreement with the owner to lease or purchase their water rights),” said City Commissioner and Water Policy Strategic Planning Team Chair Ladona Clayton. “Then they can’t irrigate their crops. They can no longer be in the crop-raising business. They can have water for their homesteads, but if you need it for livestock they’re going to have to deduct the cost of that water off of what we pay them.”

Quay County’s Ute Dam, completed in 1963, may one day replace the declining Ogallala Aquifer as the region’s sustainable water source. But geological research shows parts of the region only have about 20 years of water left at current rates of use, Clayton said. And that forecast is a little close for comfort when compared with the uncertain completion date of the Ute Water Project, the progress of which is contingent on federal funding cycles and construction work that can’t be done overnight.

Clayton said she believes 20 years is an optimistic completion timeframe for the Ute Water Project.

“We believe, based on credible research, that we have an estimated 20-year water supply remaining even when considering effluent reuse,” she said last month. “At the end of that 20-year period, either Ute Pipeline must be completed and in operation or a water supply must be secured to provide water to the citizens of Clovis beyond the 20 years of available water. Our whole goal is to ensure we all continue to have an available water supply.”

This is where water banking comes in.

Cost: Estimates range from $40 million to $60 million

The idea is that wells belonging to willing landowners now pumping at 80 percent capacity for agricultural use are halted, and when the pumping resumes years later it is at 20 percent capacity, quadrupling that well’s functional lifespan from 10 to 40 years.

Once the agreement is entered, “the pumping stops,” Clayton said.

“The water is banked for approximately 20 years,” she continued. “Then, the city begins to make ‘water withdrawals’ from the bank by only pumping water from those wells at 20 percent capacity, which extends the life of the banked water to last at least 40 years to meet the city’s need.”

In an earlier form of MWAP presented to the city commission in August, the team identified a paleochannel of 70 adjacent, active wells northwest of Clovis that seem a good match for the water banking concept, which has since been expanded to include well-owners anywhere in the county.

But it’s not a free-for-all, nor is it compulsory. An interested water right owner (or multiple owners making a combined offer) would need to meet certain minimum criteria of saturated thickness and pumping capacity on their wells (not to mention the water quality), and some wells would be prioritized over others based on location, according to the most recent MWAP presented to the commission in December.

Where those wells are situated is important for a few reasons. Since the whole idea is for that water to be available for city use, it needs to get connected with the right infrastructure. The closer a prospective well is to a local pipeline, the less it will cost to make that hookup. Even the elevation of a proposed well field influences projected pumping costs.

That’s not a small detail either, because up to $20 million of the projected $40 million to $60 million price tag on the water banking action plan (forecasted as the most expensive of the five action plans) is for connecting pipeline, Clayton said. That cost estimate is a preliminary figure, as “taking initial steps on this plan would be beneficial in identifying cost estimates,” she said. Also, conservation land and water trusts, another of the five action plans, “may play a factor in reducing that as much as $10 million.”

As for the rest of the funding, the City Commission’s “intent is to look far and wide at every possibility, even at federal level,” Clayton said. It could also include loans from the state Finance Authority, or any and “all possibilities that could fund this at zero to the lowest percent interest that they could do.”

But what impact will there be to Joe Q. Citizen, apart from in the best worst-case scenario of having water when it might otherwise be gone?

“Now if the question is, ‘Will the taxpayer come out without having to pay a dime?’ the answer is no,” Clayton said. “This is going to cost us something. Our goal has been to reduce that as much as possible and try to find existing dollars or existing avenues where some money might be able to be accessed.”

“I don’t want to get lost in acronyms, but there are so many federal agencies we want to tap into,” she said.

Worth noting on this point is that water banking “directly aligns” with one of “four (key) recommendations outlined in the Northeast New Mexico Regional Water Plan,” a checkbox that task force members believe “favorably positions the city of Clovis to apply for and receive state level funding,” according to the December MWAP executive summary.

But justifying that cost relies heavily on the water banking action plan really succeeding in conserving water, which some do not take as a foregone conclusion.

Success would depend on contiguous landowners participating

State Rep. Randy Crowder, R-Clovis, said last month he is concerned about a water banking effort missing the mark completely if one well is shut off but an adjoining well continues to pump, taking its neighbor’s water.

Imagine we each have a straw in the same soda glass; if one of us stops drinking, does that not just leave more soda for the other?

“Unless you buy them all out, it would seem for those that are closer, the water will come up,” Crowder said. “While you’re paying someone not to pump, unless you pay everyone not to pump, you’re not going to have anything left. I don’t know how you regulate that.”

It’s a fair point, and a valid one, Clayton agreed. In the case of evaluating a well, the nearby wells need to also be considered. That’s partly why the task force initially restricted the water banking concept to only the paleochannel, as all of the wells were found capable of being secured and the pumping stopped.

With the selection criteria a little broader now, there are more options but more vetting that needs to happen, too.

“Contiguous landowners are essential to making this concept work,” Clayton said. “So, all those landowners who submit a Request for Information will need to be able to ensure that neighboring landowners cannot be depleting the aquifer adjacent to their property. That property is best called a water well field as it will represent a significant amount of water.”

The Request for Information will be required of all parties interested in the sale or lease of water, following which will be a formal proposal reviewed by a committee of five drawn from the city and county government, ENMWUA and EPCOR. An independent contractor to study the performance and water levels of candidate wells is to be hired by May 1, and agricultural wells would be turned off for preliminary testing purposes as early as June and as late as October, according to the MWAP.

By this month next year, the plan is to negotiate final contracts with landowners. Owner of the final water is to-be-determined, as decided between Clovis, Curry County, ENMWUA and EPCOR, said the MWAP.

“That right there is actually when you shut off the pumping completely,” Clayton said.

Clovis mayor: Sooner we start, the greater the benefit

As far as a timeline on water projects go, this one is scheduled for a steady clip. Some were concerned that dedicating time and funding to water banking, or really any action item other than the Ute Water Project, could detrimentally dilute the greater long-term effort.

“I’m not against any plan. We’re all in this together,” said former Clovis Mayor and ENMWUA chair Gayla Brumfield. “But my focus has been and always will be the Ute Water Project, and I’m worried about it. I’m worried that we’re losing a little of the willpower to get it done.”

Current Clovis Mayor and ENMWUA Chair David Lansford said last month that it was important to the success of water banking that it start as soon as reasonably possible.

“The sooner you begin to water bank the greater the benefit and that’s because irrigation farming is pulling water out much more aggressively,” he said. “And so if we can be wise and selective about where we retire irrigation farming and convert those farms into dryland operations and conserve that water, or bank that water for future generations, then we have more water supply remaining in our aquifer. … The sooner you begin to reserve or bank water, the greater the long-term benefit.”