SSF PLAN:

Water Conservation

The energy required to pump water is significant. The energy used for water pumping typically results in GHG emissions, depending upon the source of energy used.

The City of Santa Fe’s reduces water use through the replacement of water-hogging toilets and appliances. City water conservation programs, including the use of appropriate landscaping, have resulted in a drop from 137 gallons per person per day to 103 gallons over a seven-year period.

Proposed Actions

• Develop a Water Conservation Strategic Plan.
• Expand rebates and incentive programs.
• Adopt new technologies to better track water use and then help customers conserve more easily.
• Improve billing system to better track supply-side infrastructure and water use by customers as well as to validate the effectiveness of new conservation measures.
• Broaden the use of, and consider requiring, a variety of water saving appliances.
• Reduce unnecessary public and private landscape watering.
• Expand the existing residential leak investigation/survey program to include other water customer sectors.
• Require Irrigation Certification from the NM Irrigation Association for some irrigation installations.
• Improve the City website to include water conservation information for residential and commercial customers that is useful and interactive.
• Create and maintain public demonstration gardens throughout the City.

Ecological Adaptation

Fundamental changes in climate create serious implications for soil, water, plants, and animals, including loss of native species, change in the timing of life events such as migration or initiation of breeding, reduced local biodiversity, increased evapotranspiration, plant diebacks due to drought stress, catastrophic forest fires, increased pest risks, reduction of mountain snow packs, and peak spring runoff from snowmelt shifting to earlier in the season.

What’s the City Doing So Far

• Encouragement of on-site storm water management
• Implementation of a pilot program installing permeable pavement to reduce urban runoff and increase groundwater recharge
• Requirements for the protection of significant vegetation
• Utilization of yard wastes for mulch
• Restoration of the Santa Fe River

The Plan’s Proposed Actions

• Create systems that maximize use of rain and storm water for plant support and groundwater recharge.
• Reduce “urban heat island effect”
• Protect soils as the foundation of adaptation to the impacts of climate change.