Canceled - Santa Fe Women's Commission
Tue, Mar 10, 2026 · Santa Fe Women's Commission
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1226

== Executive Summary ==
The meeting provided an in-depth look at Santa Fe's wastewater treatment, highlighting its evolution, current compliance, and future plans. A key theme was the shift in perspective from viewing wastewater as a liability to a valuable asset, especially in a water-scarce region. The city is actively pursuing the San Juan Chama Return Flow Project to reuse treated effluent, aiming to secure Santa Fe's long-term water supply by the 2030s and address potential shortages. This initiative requires significant future investments, estimated between $100-$300 million, for facility upgrades or a complete rebuild.

A major development discussed was the securing of $2.3 million in federal funding, championed by Congresswoman Leger Fernandez, to install meters and an underground storage tank for accurate measurement and management of treated effluent. This funding underscores the strong partnership between the city and federal government in addressing critical water infrastructure needs. The Congresswoman praised Santa Fe's proactive approach to water management, noting its leadership role for other communities.

== Key Decisions ==
- The governing body previously approved a 10-year rate increase for wastewater users to fund future needs.
- $2.3 million in federal funding for effluent measurement infrastructure has been secured.

== Public Comment ==
Congresswoman Leger Fernandez praised Santa Fe's foresight and leadership in water management, stating that other cities look to Santa Fe as an example. She emphasized the importance of funding "unsexy" wastewater projects for community operation and highlighted her commitment to securing water infrastructure funding across her district, reiterating her office's role in supporting community-identified priorities for federal funding. She also stressed the national need for infrastructure investment and the critical importance of clean water, stating "water is life." The Mayor expressed profound gratitude for the significant federal funding, highlighting its positive impact on effluent production, recreation, and the availability of drinkable water, reiterating "Agua es vida."

== Topics ==
- Wastewater Treatment Facility Upgrades
- Effluent Reuse and Water Scarcity
- Federal Funding for Water Projects
- Compliance and Regulatory Standards
- Water Infrastructure Investment
- Effluent Measurement and Delivery
- Staffing and Operations
- Rate Increase for Wastewater Users
- Santa Fe's Leadership in Water Management
- Partnership with Federal Government
- Public Information and Automation
- Recreational Water Use

== Full Transcript ==
All right. Well, we'll get going here. Thank you all for being here. I really appreciate seeing all the familiar faces. We got a lot of our division and department directors here. They're ready to be here next year for the next big check ceremony, I think. So, they're coming for some point. It's an honor for me to kick things off today. My name is Jesse Roach. I'm the city's interim Public Utilities Department Director, and we're here to celebrate a partnership between the city and the federal government as represented by our local leader, Congresswoman Leger Fernandez, and her staff. The Congresswoman has taken an interest in helping the city to ensure that the water we discharge from the Pojoaque Pueblo Water Reclamation Facility is of high quality and meets all requirements and thresholds necessary for use to irrigate grass or flow down either the Lower Santa Fe River or the Rio Grande. So thank you for that interest.

So to start out, I'm going to hand the floor over to Mike Doer, our Wastewater Division Director, to provide some history on wastewater treatment in Santa Fe up through the current day and a look at what's coming.

Mike Doer: Thank you. Good morning. A quick brief history of the facility. The Pojoaque Pueblo Reclamation Facility was located on the south side of town, over next to the Santa Fe Regional Airport. It was built in 1961. Discharge effluent is primarily into the Santa Fe River. Seasonally, we do provide reuse water to irrigate parks and three golf courses. In the 65 years, it has undergone changes to a treatment process infrastructure driven by regulatory standards becoming more stringent. Our process has evolved over the years, utilizing biological process to treat the wastewater, settling to clarify the wastewater, and ultraviolet disinfection to sterilize bacteria and viruses before discharging the effluent to its many uses.

Over the past several years, aging infrastructure and maintaining a fully staffed facility have led to effluent discharge compliance exceeded. Due to these exceedances, the EPA and NMED have imposed multiple administrative orders to the facility in an effort to enforce compliance. The facility has taken steps to address individually every compliance issue and correct the treatment process to maintain compliance. Repair to the facility infrastructure, new and rehabilitative process components, and projects bringing the facility into the digital age has created noticeable results. In the past few years, the facility maintained more consistent compliance and is currently in full compliance for discharge.

Coupled with the efforts to maintain compliance, we are pushing the updated facility automation and information delivered to our stakeholders. Today, anyone can go to the City of Santa Fe's website and find the E. coli lab results under the Wastewater Management page by clicking on the Reclaimed Water Data icon. In the last six months, our staffing plan was updated, resulting in four new hired operators. In the next few weeks, we'll be posting additional operation positions and vacancies on a path to be fully staffed again. Last year, the governing body unanimously approved a 10-year rate increase for wastewater users that will create a resource needed for us to ensure all of our successes thrive into the future.

Currently, staff and consultants are working on providing options to lock in compliance for well into the future. They're currently utilizing standards, compiled data, and facility evaluations for structures and processes to build a detailed plan for rebuild options. In parallel, staff and consultants are also working in the process to finalize an RFP to build a new facility. Either option requires substantial monetary commitments in the range of $100 to $300 million. This is why each scenario must be gone through thoroughly to provide the best possible recommendation to the governing body. I feel we're heading in a positive direction and will succeed in the journey, especially with the keen assistance provided by our elected officials. I really thank you, Congresswoman. This is very important to us to keep striding forward, and we love that you have the ability to help us and secure these sort of funds to make this process work. Thank you.

Jesse Roach: All right. Thanks, Mike, for that overview of the plant that never rests, 24/7, 365. It doesn't matter if the power goes out, that water still keeps flowing to that plant. Before I get into the specifics of the project that this funding will help execute, I'd like to discuss the role of wastewater effluent in a larger context. Wastewater used to be exactly that, liquid waste, a negative asset that was simply something to get rid of as quickly and as cheaply as possible. We used to have a contract with the Santa Fe Country Club that allowed them to take effluent at no cost. Not anymore. And although we still call it wastewater in Santa Fe and around the U.S. and around the world, the paradigm is shifting. And wastewater has gone from being a liability to being an asset. And not surprisingly, where water is limited, we now charge the country club and all other non-potable reusers for effluent. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. We're now looking at how to indirectly put some of that effluent back into our potable water system.

So more than a decade ago, with federal assistance again, our water utility became one of the first in the nation to look at what climate change impacts might mean to our long-term water supply. And in that study, we identified potential shortages by the 2030s if worst-case demand growth and supply impacts came to pass. And we also identified wastewater effluent as the most promising resource to bring to bear on these potential shortages. Following that study, and again with federal assistance, we undertook a feasibility study to identify the best way to reuse the effluent. And the project that came away as by far the most efficient use of resources is called the San Juan Chama Return Flow Project. And we are currently in the permitting and design phases of that project. With that project in place, we will be using less than one-half of our sustainably available water supply in the short term and expect to have the necessary water resources to see us into the 2100s. That project will require that we return some of the effluent from the Pojoaque Pueblo Water Reclamation Facility to the Rio Grande, a new point of discharge, and yet another reason to be fully committed to ensuring that our effluent meets all discharge standards for the health of humans and the environment and the future resiliency of Santa Fe's water resources.

So that's the context for the importance of this resource to us and our commitment to getting the water quality piece right because we are still in the process of deciding whether to replace the weak links in the current chain or largely rebuild. The truly shovel-ready portion of our efforts at Pojoaque Pueblo are related to changing our effluent paradigm to one in which we measure every drop of effluent that we deliver to either the rivers or the effluent users. The $2.3 million in funding that has been so generously allocated to us will fund most of our installation of six meters in underground vaults to measure delivery of effluent to customers and an underground storage tank at the high point in the effluent delivery system to aid in these deliveries. This shift to effluent as the valuable commodity that it is, being measured accurately and sold to customers who want it, creates a revenue base to help support the capital investments that the city, with help from our state and federal partners, is so heavily invested in. So, thank you, Congresswoman, for helping to fund the next step in our journey towards high-quality effluent being effectively delivered when and where it is needed.

Congresswoman Leger Fernandez: Well, thank you, Mayor. No, no, Congresswoman. So I love listening to each of you talk about the role that the whole water system plays, right? Because water in our life is not static. It's not like, "Oh, we're going to just drink it." It's like, how does the water system play both in how we need to use it, how nature needs to use it, and how the system is all integrated? That loop that we constantly talk about. And I am very proud of Santa Fe. You know, I interact with my colleagues across the nation, and so I have people who represent cities that aren't as good as Santa Fe, and they actually tell me that, "Oh, Santa Fe is leading the way with regards to understanding its limitations on water and what it needs and how it's going to meet that." And we just heard that today. And so it's really wonderful to have my colleagues praise our little city for having the foresight, and that is foresight that your predecessor did, and that the leadership in Santa Fe did quite a few decades ago, of thinking, "We don't have enough water, and how do we make sure that we do not lose a drop of it, that we use all of it in the way that is most..." But you can't use it if you don't clean it. Very simple, right? And sometimes wastewater is not the most sexy, right? It's like, "You're funding waste." It's like, "Yeah, because if we don't fund wastewater, we cannot actually operate our communities."

And I have dedicated a lot of the work I've done in D.C. to getting money for water projects across our country, across my district, sorry. My district is the world, right? Who cares about everybody else? As you know, my district is all of Northern New Mexico, all of Eastern New Mexico, all the way down to Hobbs, Artesia, Roswell, Farmington, Clayton. It's a big district, and there is no place in my district that doesn't have big water infrastructure needs. Now, you actually have the water. You know, I just recently got very significant funding. I'm not going to say it here because then you'll feel bad, but for Gallup Navajo, but that's because they don't have water, right? They have homes where they cannot, where kids will draw, "What does water look like?" They will draw the truck bringing the water to the home in the back of the pickup truck. Here we have water, but we don't want to lose any part of it. And so the work that you're doing on this is really great.

I am thankful that the city actually, that we have a partnership, that the city comes to me and says, "We need this," right? Because that's my job is to serve the city with wherever we can pick up resources. The community-funded projects are a great place to pick up resources because when the community comes and tells my office, "This is a priority, this is one priority, two priorities," we can see whether we can fund them through this project where I get to choose. First it was 10, then it was 15, and next year it will be 20 projects to submit to appropriations. I don't actually get to say whether they get funded or not, so I have to choose the best ones. I have to choose the ones that can show that they're supported by the community, they're essential to the community, they're well thought out because there are going to be appropriators who are going to look at those projects and say, "It's not fully baked. It doesn't have the support. It's not ready," right? But your project was ready now. And yes, you might need $100 to $200 million, but you need this right now, right? And so that's why it's so great that we were able to fund this right now, because without it, you know, we're not going to be able to continue to operate as a city, right?

You just cannot. And so, 2.43, that's great. 2,345. That was really easy. Okay, remember, 2,345,000 is a significant part. It is a portion of what you need, but know that we'll stand with you. I believe in infrastructure funding. When I first got in, we got about a billion dollars for these kinds of projects, wastewater projects. There's been a little bit of cutback on how we do that infrastructure funding in this administration, but we hope that we will continue to, we'll come back. I think that we need as a nation to do another big investment in infrastructure because across the country, there is no community in any state that doesn't have huge water wastewater projects. So, I think you're going to have a lot of supporters for additional funding, but for now, we'll go with what we can get because water is life. It needs to be cleaned. So, with that, I'll turn it over to the mayor. You get to help implement this project.

Mayor: Thank you, Congresswoman, and I just want to thank you two million times over. This is a significant amount of money that's going to truly help us, especially in our effluent processes. Director Roach mentioned there was a point in time where everybody was clamoring for the little bit of effluent we have, and now we're going to be working towards producing more, and I think this is going to be a critical asset in regards to our infrastructure, particularly our recreation, because the more effluent we use in recreation, that means there's more usable water, drinkable water for our community. As they say, and as you always say, "Agua es vida," and it holds true today. So, thank you for having the trust in us and helping us get this funding, and we're definitely going to put it to good use. As you've mentioned, there's a partnership here, and I'm thankful to have this partnership with you, Congresswoman, and we're going to continuously strengthen this relationship. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This one was long because we had to have all those numbers.

It's going to help create lots of clean water available for projects across the city of Santa Fe, including having fun at our recreation locations, isn't it?

Yes. Yes. This is going to be a tremendous help and support for our effluent water production. So, just many thanks to the Congresswoman, and here we go.

Perfect. Thank you, guys.