If you fill a glass at a kitchen sink in Santa Fe, you are sharing it with a lot of people you will never meet. There is a golf club outside town, a ditch that runs through it, and springs downstream of it. There is a hospital that serves seven counties. In June 2024 there was also a town about sixty miles east whose treatment plant could not keep up, and it got some of yours by truck.
Santa Fe drinking water is the City's blend of three sources. About 35% in 2024 came from the closed municipal watershed on the Santa Fe River. About 43% was San Juan–Chama water pulled from the Rio Grande at Buckman, and about 22% came from wells. It serves roughly 90,000 people directly. A longer list of ditches, springs, neighbors, and towns depends on the same sources.
The first post in this series mapped what Santa Fe depends on. This one turns the map around. It is not a list of targets. It is a list of names, because nobody on it acts on "water." A parciante acts on the ditch. A utility director acts on a turbidity reading at the plant.
who is on the map
| who | depends on | the edge |
|---|---|---|
| City of Santa Fe customers | The 2024 blend: ~35% municipal watershed / 43% San Juan–Chama via Buckman / 22% groundwater | Roughly 90,000 people; ratepayers already fund forest work above the reservoirs |
| Santa Fe County utility | The Buckman Direct Diversion | Up to 1,700 acre-feet a year of capacity; co-owner of the diversion |
| Club at Las Campanas | Raw Rio Grande water through Buckman | 1,800 acre-feet a year, untreated, for two golf courses; co-owner with two seats on the BDD Board |
| Four acequias: del Llano, Cerro Gordo, Madre, Muralla | Santa Fe River water released below the dams | Court-ordered delivery requirements for Cerro Gordo and Madre |
| La Cienega springs, wetlands, and ditches | The Ancha aquifer, recharged along the Santa Fe River's old channel | Aquifer fell as much as 8.9 feet before about 2012; the state makes the City offset its wellfield pumping there |
| Las Vegas, NM | Santa Fe's treated water, in an emergency | 1.4 million gallons trucked in late June 2024 |
| Hotels, CHRISTUS St. Vincent, LANL households | The City and County taps | Exposure, not an invoice (more below) |
Seven rows. Each names a pipe, a ditch, a spring, or a truck, and each has a person on the other end.
the city tap: one glass, three sources
The closed forest above McClure and Nichols reservoirs has been off-limits to the public since 1932. Snowmelt from it runs down the Santa Fe River to the Canyon Road treatment plant and into about 90,000 people's kitchens. That mountain supplied 52% of the City's water in wet 2023 and about 35% in 2024.
Another 43% was San Juan–Chama water, pulled from the Rio Grande at the Buckman Direct Diversion. That is snowmelt from the San Juan headwaters in Colorado, stored in the Rio Chama reservoirs and sent down the Rio Grande. Wells covered the remaining 22%.
If you pay a Santa Fe water bill, you are already on this map twice. You drink from the mountain, and you help pay for it. Ratepayers have funded thinning and monitoring in the municipal watershed since 2013. Post 5 covers that fund and what it can and cannot cover.
the river pipe: a county and a golf club
Santa Fe County has run its own utility since 2012 and draws its water through Buckman. So does the Las Campanas Water Cooperative, whose 1,200-plus members get treated water through the County.
The Club at Las Campanas takes 1,800 acre-feet a year of raw river water through the same diversion, untreated, for two golf courses. An acre-foot is roughly a football field covered a foot deep. The member-owned club is a co-owner of Buckman, shares its capital and operating costs, and holds two of the seven seats on the board that runs it.
The fairways and the County's customers share that line, and it depends on a forest in Colorado, on a river through Pueblo land, and on canyons above the intake that can send down enough sediment to shut it off.
the ditch and the cienega
Four acequias still take water from the Santa Fe River between Nichols Dam and Patrick Smith Park: del Llano, Cerro Gordo, Madre, and Muralla. Some of their rights may be older than the City's. After decades of conflict, a court ordered the City to meet delivery requirements for Cerro Gordo and Madre. Those two ditches have a legal claim on the same mountain water that fills City taps. An acequia is not water, the next post, is theirs.
Farther downstream, the Santa Fe River does something most residents never see. Water sinking along its old channel recharges the Ancha aquifer, and the aquifer feeds the springs and wetlands of La Cienega. The Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve is there, along with acequias of La Cienega's own. Before about 2012, aquifer levels near La Cienega fell by as much as 8.9 feet, and residents reported springs drying. Levels have been stabilizing since.
The state has already written this dependency down. The City must hold water rights that offset the effect of its wellfield pumping on La Cienega. That is a legal acknowledgment that a spring-fed wetland south of town depends on how Santa Fe runs its water.
a town sixty miles away
In late June 2024, fire debris from the 2022 Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon burn upset the treatment plant in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Santa Fe trucked 1.4 million gallons of treated water to help.
That is a place depending on a place. Santa Fe's system was the backstop for a neighbor whose own source had failed, so the map does not stop at the city limits. Santa Fe did not burn. The fire story belongs to post 4.
exposure is not an invoice
About 3 million people visited Santa Fe in 2023, and 2.2 million stayed the night. Every room night means a shower, a load of sheets, and a glass at dinner. CHRISTUS St. Vincent employs more than 2,600 people and serves more than 300,000 across seven counties, and a hospital cannot run without water. In FY2025, 4,089 Santa Fe County residents worked for Los Alamos National Laboratory. Their housing and their water are here.
All of them are exposed to the same three sources. That does not make them payors. Exposure is a fact, and paying is a choice. If a hotel group, a hospital, or an employer decides its source is worth funding, the door is open.
neighbors, not dependents
The Pueblos of Tesuque, Cochiti, San Ildefonso, Nambé, and Pojoaque are not on the table, and that is deliberate. They are sovereign neighbors and rights-holders whose ties to this water are older than the city.
The Santa Fe River ends at Cochiti Reservoir, near Cochiti Pueblo. One of the early-warning gauges that tell Buckman when to stop diverting sits in lower Los Alamos Canyon and operates with San Ildefonso's permission. Nambé, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, and Tesuque are parties to the Aamodt settlement, which is building a regional water system with its own Rio Grande intake on San Ildefonso land. The City's wellfield offsets are owed partly on the Rio Nambé–Pojoaque and the Rio Tesuque.
If anything, that edge runs toward Santa Fe: the city depends on its neighbors' permission and rivers. Nothing in this series is an ask of the Pueblos. Any conversation happens by invitation.
both ways, or half a map
The system drinks both the mountain and the imported river; each dependent leans on a different share. City customers get the blend. The County and the Club lean on the river pipe. The acequias and La Cienega lean on the mountain and the aquifer it recharges. The Santa Fe River below the dams flows because the City releases up to 1,000 acre-feet a year under its Living River ordinance (met in 2024).
Santa Fe is also a dependent itself. San Juan–Chama allocations were cut in 6 of the 10 years from 2015 to 2024, falling as low as 64% in 2022. A short year in Colorado shows up as less water to divert at Buckman. The Colorado River series has the basin math, and the San Juan River agent is live.
The people already working both ends are the heroes here. The Nature Conservancy's Rio Grande Water Fund is paying for forest work in the Navajo River basin, part of San Juan–Chama source country, and names Santa Fe as a beneficiary. Nobody is starting from zero.
how to find your place on the map
- Name your source. City customer: your 2024 glass was about a third mountain, two-fifths Colorado snowmelt, and a fifth well water. County or Las Campanas: mostly the Buckman pipe. On a ditch: the Santa Fe River. In La Cienega: the aquifer the river recharges.
- Name the living thing upstream. It could be the closed forest above McClure and Nichols, the San Juan headwaters forest in Colorado, the Santa Fe River below the dams, or the recharge zone along the old channel.
- Name the person already watching it. Candidates include the City Water Division and the BDD Board, the acequia commissions, Santa Fe County and the Botanical Garden at La Cienega, and the Rio Grande Water Fund. They are the door, not an audience.
- Take one step. A utility or co-owner can fund the specific source it draws from. City customer: your bill already funds the watershed — who already pays shows what it covers. Anyone else: ask the City Water Division or your acequia commission who funds your source.
That is the care-is-specific move, applied to one town. "Protect Santa Fe" gets a nod. "The forest above the reservoir that filled your glass" names something a person can fund.
How our part fits: in ensurance, an agent is an onchain account that holds and routes funding for a named place, people, or purpose — here, a river. The live door for this water is rio-grande-river.basin, the agent for the river Buckman draws from. There is no Santa Fe certificate on the shelf. A Santa Fe River line is an idea, not a product, and our volumes are small. The price on any certificate is a way to move money to a place. It is not a claim about what the river is worth.
frequently asked questions
who drinks santa fe water?
About 90,000 people on the City system drink it directly, from a 2024 blend of roughly 35% municipal watershed, 43% San Juan–Chama water via Buckman, and 22% groundwater. Santa Fe County utility customers, the Las Campanas Water Cooperative, and the Club at Las Campanas draw from the Buckman diversion.
who depends on the santa fe river?
City water customers, four operating acequias (del Llano, Cerro Gordo, Madre, and Muralla), and the springs, wetlands, and ditches of La Cienega, which are fed by aquifer recharge along the river's old channel. The river ends at Cochiti Reservoir, on the edge of Cochiti Pueblo, a sovereign neighbor, not a dependent.
is santa fe water only for the city?
No. The County and Las Campanas co-own the Buckman diversion with the City. Acequias hold court-backed delivery claims on river water. The state makes the City offset its pumping's effect on La Cienega. In June 2024, Santa Fe trucked 1.4 million gallons to Las Vegas, New Mexico, after fire debris upset that town's water treatment.
next steps
- Run a utility, or co-own a diversion? See how utilities fund the source they draw from →
- Want to see what is live for this river? Start at the rio grande agent →
- On this map and want to fund your source? Tell us which one →
- On a ditch? An acequia is not water →