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Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin per household, ensure that water consumption comes from surface sources, and increasingly rely on the aquifer as a source of water during droughts or other emergencies. EI Paso's story is similar. By 1910, when the City ofEI Paso took over the EI Paso Water Company, the entire municipal water supply came from wells. For nearly half a century El Paso relied exclusively on groundwater from the Hueco Bolson, which it shares with Ciudad Juarez. Since around 1917, withdrawals have exceeded recharge. In 1941 EI Paso began contracting with the EPCWID to obtain surface water rights from the Rio Grande Project and divert water from agricultural use. It also began withdrawing water from the Mesilla Bolson, an aquifer primarily located in New Mexico. In 1992, El Paso obtained 60 percent of its supplies from the Hueco Bolson, 15 percent from the Mesilla Bolson, and the remainder from surface water. It recently increased its use of surface water to more than 40 percent, with the completion of a new treatment plant. ., " , 4 . Groundwater plays an important role in the agricultural sector throughout the Basin. Many farmers, especially in the northern Basin, begin irrigating with groundwater early in the growing season, then switch to surface water as mountain snow melts, and switch back to groundwater as surface flows taper off. Many farmers use the aquifer as an underground reservoir, drawing from it when surface flows are low and recharging it when they are high. In the northern part of Colorado's San Luis Valley farmers currently rely heavily on a large underground reservoir created by seepage from past flood irrigation that used water from the Rio Grande. Here and elsewhere, though, ensuring that the reservoir is not depleted over time remains a considerable technical (gauging) and managerial challenge. Many observers look at the historical tendency to deplete aquifers in the Basin and fear that, especially when the mechanics of an aquifer are poorly understood, this tendency will manifest itself again. Responses to this fear generally take the form of broad prohibitions of actions that might threaten the aquifer. Farmers in the San Luis Valley, for example, are trying to prohibit further expansion of irrigated acreage. The desire to protect water tables sometimes can have complex origins, as in this valley, where many farmers want to protect their future access to groundwater for irrigation, but also want to maintain water tables at high enough levels so they support wetlands providing valuable wildlife habitat. ~: " r~ , ,~: " f. .f 0>:);/8 ',/~Uvl 8 !