Heavy monsoon rains are usually celebrated in the drought-stricken mountains of northeastern New Mexico, where the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains. This is even more so after the largest wildfires in state history came within a mile of consuming the largest community in the region this spring.
But this isn’t the time when officials have been forced to cancel the annual arts and crafts fair that draws thousands of visitors in Las Vegas, New Mexico, for fear of fresh water shortages. The pool is empty. The restaurant serves food on paper plates. And the gushing sky doesn’t help.
Instead of refilling the reservoirs, the downpours flooded the scars left by the blaze known as the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak fire, released pollutants into private wells and flooded Las Vegas’ main water supply with ash sludge. Overwhelming.
This is the latest chapter in the catastrophe wrought by the federal government when Forest Service employees lost control of not just one but two prescribed burns set to clear undergrowth this spring. is. It caused massive fires that destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced thousands of people in a fire zone larger than the city of Los Angeles.
However, Megafire eventually declared 100% containment Late Augustthe aftermath of which is almost as bad as the fire itself and reflects the crisis that recently left 150,000 people without safe drinking water in Jackson, Mississippi.
For wildfire-weary western communities, Las Vegas has become a warning sign, showing the damage that large fires and other climate change-induced disasters can do to fragile water ecosystems, hindering recovery. poses another obstacle.
“First it was drought, then fires, then floods, then water shortages,” said Las Vegas resident and restaurant owner Isaac Sandoval. “What’s next?”
At one point this month, Las Vegas, one of the poorest states in the United States and home to a predominantly Hispanic rural community, had only about 20 days of fresh water left. While authorities introduced measures to curb water consumption, he was forced to cut his water usage down to about 44 gallons (44 gallons) per person per day.
Read More About Extreme Weather
For a place that was becoming a tourist destination, with a new modern French owned art center and the resumption of the symbolic Harvey House In hotels, the aftermath of the water crisis is causing anxiety.
To save money, Sandoval’s restaurant, Skillet, began serving dishes like brisket tacos and green chile fries on paper plates and with disposable utensils.
Sandoval, who has 25 employees, said: “But this is the cost of running a business right now.
At the same time, he has scrambled to reduce his water usage, but floods have hit his family home outside the town, and further flooding remains a constant threat. Some residents and businesses are deploying sandbags to protect their property, fearing that the tsunami will destroy parts of the town.
Wildfires dramatically alter the natural flow of water, leaving the ground scorched and destroying vegetation that absorbs rainfall and reduces runoff. In heavily burned areas, it can take years for trees and other vegetation to recover to levels that reduce the risk of flooding.
In the meantime, protecting Las Vegas’ drinking water will be difficult and costly. Federal, state, and local resources are all committed to strengthening the system. This cost further highlights the demands that climate change is placing on communities across the country. Because they are coping with the onslaught of droughts, storms, wildfires, and other disasters that are more intense and frequent.
As storms start washing erosion debris into watersheds around Las Vegas, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a catchment network along the nearby Galinas River, an infrastructure that feeds the river’s water into a filtration system. to prevent it from being damaged by rocks and trees.
At the same time, the town’s main reservoir was filled with so much pollution that it was not clear whether the existing treatment system would make the water safe to drink. Authorities are using $2.5 million in emergency state funding to provide clean water from an artificial lake built on the edge of town a century ago.
So far, officials say the system is working, but only as a stopgap measure for the next three to four months. I said that I was considering installing a new filter, but that fix would be temporary.
According to Trujillo, the only way to secure the town’s water supply in the long term is to replace the entire water filtration system. He estimates it will cost about $100 million. This is an astronomical amount for a town where 32% of his population lives below the poverty line.
Before the water crisis, many people in Las Vegas and nearby communities were already outraged that the federal government had started the fires.
The backlash forced a temporary suspension of prescribed burns, and an internal Forest Service study found some New Mexico employees were concerned about the extremely windy and completely dry conditions. Nevertheless, I felt under pressure to carry out the plan.
The investigation found that a nearby automated weather station was offline at the time the fire started, and that firefighters from different agencies were using separate radio frequencies, impeding communications when the fire spiraled out of control. It was also found that
During a brief visit to New Mexico in June, President Biden expressed support for federal compensation for losses related to the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak fires. A law providing such compensation to residents and business owners was approved by the House of Representatives in July and is now awaiting consideration in the Senate.
New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan, a Democrat, said passing the bill is his top priority. “The federal government has caused the largest wildfires in our state’s history,” he said.
Still, the bill does not cover state or local infrastructure projects, such as water system overhauls, and it is clear that local governments lack funding for such projects.
Lujan’s spokeswoman Katherine Schneider said while state and federal funds were being used for temporary measures, New Mexico senators and other New Mexico legislative delegations were working to rebuild the country. He said he was working to “find and secure the long-term investment needed” to do so. Las Vegas water system.
Las Vegas Mayor Trujillo stressed that the federal government, which started the fires, must bear the costs of ensuring the town’s water supply in the short and long term. “I’m going to charge you every cent,” he said. “I have to put their feet on the fire. No fancy intentions.”
Las Vegas isn’t the first place where drinking water is at risk from fires. Andrew Welton, an engineering professor at Purdue University, said several fires between 2017 and 2020, including the Echo Mountain and Lionshead fires in Oregon and the CZU Lightning Complex and Camp fires in California, caused We have found that drinking water systems for 100,000 people are at risk. Man.
The contamination that pervades these systems includes everything from silt and natural debris to asbestos, heavy metals, radioactive isotopes, and other harmful pollutants released when man-made structures burn. increase. Even parts of the well can decompose and release carcinogens as wildfires rage around the well.
“With wildfires raging in the West, no utility thinks it’s not going to happen to them,” Welton said.
Outside Las Vegas, Scott Frost owns a company that operates small water systems for rural communities in fire zones. He and his employees have been washing and sanitizing one after another over the past few weeks.
Delays in the supply chain have hampered efforts to rebuild the water system and may force authorities to truck water to families living near the burn scars, he said.
“That means trucking water in January or February, the coldest, most freezing and most difficult months of the year,” Frost said. “It’s not fun.”
In many cases, those who needed his help also suffered losses in the fires. So from time to time he receives payments in the form of chickens or homemade pies.
“These people have already had their teeth kicked in,” he said. “They don’t need another fat bill.”