Los Alamos does need to conserve water

I disagree with the notion that we can pour as much water on our lawns as we want while exhorting the rest of the state to solve “their” water problem. That has been the gist of numerous suggestions in recent months that we need not conserve water in Los Alamos.

We live in a dry region. The water supply and usage patterns in Los Alamos may be different than in much of the state, but that gives us neither moral nor political license to waste such a precious resource.

Statewide, residential water use in New Mexico represents about 9 percent of total use. 5 percent goes to industry, 76 percent goes to agriculture, and roughly 10 percent is lost to evaporation from rivers and reservoirs.

Political and economic pressure from the growing urban populations will undoubtedly bring fundamental change, diverting more water to domestic use at the cost of the traditional agrarian culture that has defined northern New Mexico for centuries.

This will be a long, slow, and painful change.

The water situation in Los Alamos is much different. At present, we are “living within our means” waterwise. All our supply is groundwater pumped from the aquifer via deep wells.

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