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Residents press Santa Fe County to pause transfer of Rancho Viejo exploratory well water rights, citing risk to neighborhood wells
Summary
Multiple residents from Churchill Road, Rancho Viejo and surrounding neighborhoods urged the Board of County Commissioners to pause the county’s involvement with an application to transfer water rights to an exploratory well at Rancho Viejo, saying deep production could impair local domestic wells and calling for more study and notice.
Residents in neighborhoods surrounding the Rancho Viejo exploratory well pressed county commissioners to pause the county’s association with a proposed water-rights transfer that they say threatens local domestic wells. Dozens of residents testified during public comment about declining well levels, concerns over a deep exploratory well’s pumping capacity and the lack of advance notice to well owners.
At the meeting, several speakers from Churchill Road, Vista Ocasa and nearby neighborhoods described falling water levels in household and shared wells and said the 1,350-foot exploratory well near Rancho Viejo is capable of pumping hundreds of gallons per minute — orders of magnitude above the water use of nearby private wells. Speakers asked the commission to stop any steps that would convert the exploratory well into a production well used to satisfy developers’ obligations or to expand nearby development.
Speakers included homeowners, neighborhood association representatives and the president of the Santa Fe Gateway Alliance. Many urged the commission either to withdraw from the current water-rights application or to pause county participation pending a comprehensive study of aquifer impacts and mitigation for affected well owners. Several speakers cited a county hydrology report and the need for additional groundwater modeling and expressed distrust of a transfer application they characterized as aimed at facilitating nearby development.
Representatives from the El Dorado Area Water and Sanitation District urged study of regional groundwater geology and offered to share technical information. The property owner who had been discussed in earlier documents — and parties associated with the well — attended and said any changes to the sale or disposition of rights would require partner approval. County staff and commissioners did not take a vote on the matter during the meeting; the item was raised during the public comment period and will require ongoing staff follow-up.
What to watch: residents asked the Board to require independent groundwater analysis, pause any county endorsement or transfer pending that work, and to prioritize connecting affected neighborhoods to county water where feasible. Commissioners acknowledged the public concern and indicated they would raise the subject with county water utilities and with state regulators as staff compiles next steps.
