Courtesy Santa Fe Country Club / Facebook.com
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The country club has historically used effluent to water its turf, but an issue with the city's water treatment plant led to the use of potable water over the summer.
The City of Santa Fe has a new plan to charge the Santa Fe Country Club for irrigation water while officials struggle to restore the delivery of treated effluent.
The Paseo Real Water Reclamation Facility, also known as the city’s sewage plant, experienced an upset this spring with its biological treatment process. Officials say the problem led to increased amounts of bacteria that exceeded permitted limits for reuse and caused the city to temporarily stop sending treated effluent to locations that depend on the water for irrigation, including the country club as well as the Municipal Recreation Complex and the Marty Sanchez Golf Course.
All three facilities used potable water for irrigation over the summer and plan to continue to do so until grass goes dormant in mid-October or November, Public Utilities Director John Dupuis told the City Council.
While the effluent had been delivered to the club for free under a historic agreement, city policy requires officials to charge for potable water use.
“This is a response that was a solution to our wastewater treatment facility process upset that resulted in us not having effluent to deliver to reuse customers,” Dupuis said. “The accounting and expenses associated with providing for all these services are what we are trying to address currently with this item.”
Councilors voted unanimously in favor of the change, which authorizes the sale of potable water between April 1, 2023 and Dec. 31, 2023, up to 700,000 gallons per day to the Santa Fe Country Club and up to 1.4 million gallons daily to the Municipal Recreation Complex at a rate of $6.06 per 1,000 gallons. If either the Santa Fe Country Club or the MRC take more water than those threshold allotments, the rate increases to $21.72 per 1,000 gallons, all subject to the availability of potable water and the unavailability of treated effluent.
District 1 Councilor Renee Villarreal lamented the situation.
“I don’t want potable water to be irrigating our golf courses if we can avoid that,” Villarreal said.
District 1 Councilor Signe Lindell scrutinized the request at a Finance Committee meeting Oct. 2, stressing the importance that councilors understand the terms and timeline of the rate change. She cited a lawsuit the city filed against the country club last year.
“We’re in some difficulties with our existing agreement. It’s no secret we’re in a court case about that. We’re in mediation, I guess, at this point,” Lindell said. “I don’t want us to be in another situation where we’re headed toward court; it’s not good for anybody.”
In July 2022, the city filed a District Court lawsuit against the country club to terminate a longstanding contract that required Santa Fe’s public utility to provide the country club up to 700,000 gallons of treated effluent per day free of charge with the caveat that its golf course would be open for the public with “reasonable greens fees.”
In the complaint, the city argued that the club has breached the contract on multiple occasions through the overuse of effluent and asked that the club compensate public coffers for the consumption in addition to ending the agreement.
The club responded, arguing the contracts are valid and should remain in place. In addition, the club claimed the city has withheld wastewater effluent due to shutdowns, lack of available treated effluent and more at the expense of the club, forcing it to pay for potable water for which the club “is entitled to damages for unjust enrichment” of the city. The club asked the court to permanently bar the city from “wrongfully terminating the Agreements and enforcing provisions from the Treated Effluent Management Ordinance against SFCC at any time in the future.” SFR left a message Wednesday afternoon for the club’s general manager, who did not respond by publication time.
Dupuis assured the governing body his department has a plan to rectify the problems at the sewer plant, but did not offer a timeline during the meeting. After the city begins offering treated effluent again, the adjusted rates would “no longer be available at this rate any time in the future,” he said.
A proposed city resolution on legislative priorities identifies $88.4 million for wastewater treatment plant upgrades and an integrated/expandable modular plant.
Mayor Alan Webber affirmed the city’s long term plan to fix the plant, clarifying that the city was simply making adjustments in the meantime.
“I think it’s pretty clear that everyone wants to use effluent and not potable water,” Webber said, “and that includes the country club [and] the city, we’re all much happier when it’s available.”
