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A mix of clouds and sun. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..
A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Partly cloudy. Low 56F. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph.
The Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association water storage tank gauge on Tuesday (June 7) showed just one foot of water, or 2,500 gallons inside the normally-full 50,000 gallon tank, which supplies household water to more than 350 Chacon residents.
Jerry Martínez, water operator for the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumer Association, gestures toward the water association's buried water delivery pipe, which he and an engineering consultant believe was damaged during the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire.
Jerry Martínez, water operator for the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumer Association, said the natural spring that supplies water to Chacon has diminished by nearly three-quarters the amount it produced before the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak fire swept across the watershed above Chacon.
Jerry Martínez, water operator for the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumer Association, gestures to the area where a new spring water collection box will likely have to be installed. After the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire burned across the watershed above Chacon, the bulk of the spring water began emerging about 15 feet downhill from the association's existing collection box, threatening Chacon's water supply.
The Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association water storage tank gauge on Tuesday (June 7) showed just one foot of water, or 2,500 gallons inside the normally-full 50,000 gallon tank, which supplies household water to more than 350 Chacon residents.
Jerry Martínez, water operator for the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumer Association, gestures toward the water association's buried water delivery pipe, which he and an engineering consultant believe was damaged during the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire.
Jerry Martínez, water operator for the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumer Association, said the natural spring that supplies water to Chacon has diminished by nearly three-quarters the amount it produced before the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak fire swept across the watershed above Chacon.
Jerry Martínez, water operator for the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumer Association, gestures to the area where a new spring water collection box will likely have to be installed. After the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire burned across the watershed above Chacon, the bulk of the spring water began emerging about 15 feet downhill from the association's existing collection box, threatening Chacon's water supply.
When the state's largest wildfire swept through the mountains outside the unincorporated community of Chacon, it generated enough heat to crack the rock formation underlying a natural spring that supplied water at 20 gallons per minute to over 350 residents via 133 household connections, according to Jerry Martínez, water operator for the Agua Pura Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association (MDWCA).
Chacon is among several Northern New Mexico communities facing water crises in the wake of the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire. Its residents have gone without running water twice since evacuated residents were allowed to return to their homes in late May.
"As the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon fires merged and progressed, significant damage to land and property was caused by the combined fires in San Miguel and Mora Counties," Marisa Maez, communications director for the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Operations, said. "The Agua Pura water system in Chacon, which comes from a natural spring, sustained extreme fire damage."
Martínez said, "The spring got diverted, now it's coming out about 10-15 feet further down the rock cliff." The association supplies domestic water to about 90 percent of all residents in the Chacon area, where most attempts at drilling domestic wells in the valley result in undrinkable, sulfur-tainted water.
"We can still tap into it, depending on what the landowner says," Martínez said, noting that the steep terrain will make installing an additional collection box expensive and time-consuming.
For now, the bulk of the spring water is flowing past the collection box, which has fed into a downhill storage tank since the 1970s, when the water association was formed. And there's another problem: The delivery pipe from the collection box to the storage tank was also damaged during the fire, so the 7.5 gallons per minute the spring is still producing becomes further diminished by the time it reaches the storage tank.
"We're only getting 5 gallons a minute into the storage tank because we have a line break somewhere in the burned area between the tank and the spring," Martínez said. "We applied through [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] to get the spring source fixed, and we need a new line. We do have an engineer getting a design done for the repairs; then we need funding to pay for it."
FEMA will provide reimbursement for the repair costs, leaving it up to the volunteer-driven water association to find the money up-front.
Last week, Martínez led the Taos News up the steep hillside along the path of the buried delivery pipe to the spring box, accessible only by foot. Burned trees and deadfall littered the ash-covered landscape. As the monsoon season approaches, erosion is a major concern for communities living within the burn scar, where rains will carry ash, debris and soil down hillsides denuded of vegetation.
"The first thing that needs to be done is to clean this up," he said, gesturing across the blackened terrain.
The state is trying to accelerate the repairs.
"The state Emergency Operations Center, in coordination with FEMA’s Public Assistance Program, are working to set up a temporary pipe on top of the ground which will be paid for by the federal program, while addressing the long-term repairs," Maez said.
Although the New Mexico Environment Department hasn't signed off on the spring's post-fire water quality yet, Martínez said samples he took tested fine. He said he's not sure what will happen to the water quality when rain and snow inevitably carry ash into the rock formation that has long filtered the spring water, which isn't artesian but comes from rain and snow melt percolating into the earth.
"We got water samples last week, the water is good, but we had to shut it off for two days a week ago and let it build up — so everybody was without water for two days," Martinez said, noting that he intended to immediately seal the existing spring box to prevent ash and other debris from seeping into it when it rains.
"That's my priority," he said. "We may add a filter at the chlorination shed next to the storage tank."
In the meantime efforts to temporarily top off the community's storage tank have served to illustrate the country's lack of post-fire emergency resources.
"We need a minimum of 5,000 gallons a day added to the storage tank in order to supply the community's needs," Martinez said. "They found a 3,000 gallon water truck in Mora but the guy with the truck said it couldn't pump the water 20 feet up from the truck into the storage tank."
That was three weeks ago. State and federal agencies began searching far and wide for another truck with a suitable pump.
"I blew my top," Martínez said. "I told 'em, 'Are you actually telling me you guys are the problem solvers, but you don't have a pump in the whole state of New Mexico?'"
Maez said homeland security and emergency operations is aware of the water situation in Chacon and other communities, to which it has delivered truckloads of bottled drinking water, including 18,144 liters of water that arrived at the Chacon Volunteer Fire Department on June 1. But the search for a potable water truck proved frustrating.
"The EOC coordinated with the Army National Guard to deliver a truck full of water to the Agua Pura water tank in Chacon, but the truck could not reach the tank due to steep, rocky terrain and the water pump on the truck was not strong enough to pump the water to the tank," Maez said.
Meanwhile, Doug Dahl with Pacific Northwest Incident Management Team 2, which is currently assigned to the North Zone of the wildfire, had been trying to locate a water truck outfitted with a suitable pump for nearly two weeks. Martinez got a call the evening of June 3. Dahl said a truck that fit the bill had been located in Salt Lake City and was finally en route.
"It was supposed to be here at 8 p.m. this evening, but the truck broke down on its way here," Martínez told the Taos News on June 4.
Fire Information Officer Michael Johnson confirmed to the Taos News that the Salt Lake City truck — which he said was the only such truck available within Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah — was indeed a no-go, and indicated that "national dispatch" in Boise, Idaho, would "broaden its scope" to search for an available truck outside the Southwest region of the country.
"A short-term solution to assist with the delivery of potable water to the district has been hampered by the lack of resources available within the Southwest," Johnson said.
A suitable replacement truck finally arrived from Arizona the night of June 6, and delivered its first load of water from Las Vegas to Chacon's storage tank on Tuesday.
"We've had uninterrupted water since the truck got here," Martínez said.
Earlier this month, the New Mexico Environment Department lifted water advisories for eight water systems in Mora County and one system in San Miguel County earlier this month.
The environment department issued the initial "precautionary drinking water advisories" on May 12 as a result of power outages or direct effects to drinking water operations caused by the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire. After evacuation orders were lifted, the state, in coordination with the New Mexico Rural Water Association (NMRWA) and water system representatives began to conduct on-site evaluations of a total of 16 water systems serving about 4,150 people.
In Holman, Cleveland, Mora, Ledoux and Guadalupita, residents whose water is supplied by community water associations can safely drink, cook, shower and bathe with the water from their faucets, according to a June 3 New Mexico Environment Department press release.
Around 2,000 people whose water is supplied by the Pendaries MDWCA, Pendaries RV Resort, Camp Blue Haven, El Porvenir Christian Camp, Buena Vista MDWCA and Agua Negra MDWCA are still under a precautionary water advisory, according to the environment department.
"Customers of these public water systems should continue using alternate sources of drinking water to ensure the protection of public health," the environment department release said. "Residents who need assistance receiving free, safe drinking water may contact the Fire Resource Hotline at 1-800-432-2080."
And Agua Pura isn't the only water system in Mora County dealing with water shortages as a result of the wildfire.
"There's one here in Buena Vista up the [State Road 518] before you get to [Las] Vegas and they're having problems," Martinez said, adding that he had also heard that some residents in Pendaries were without water because "their storage tanks burned." On Tuesday (June14), Maez said the water issue in Pendaries was due to an electrical problem.
"The Penderies water system that supplies water to cabins and an RV park was restored today," Maez said on Tuesday (June 14). "In addition, a supply of water was provided to the area today. Buena Vista MDWCA is receiving guidance on how to apply for FEMA’s Public Assistance Program but is supplied with a water buffalo that was dropped at the local fire department."
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