If you live in New Mexico, you’ve probably seen the signs in public buildings that say “Saving Water is Always in Season”, because it is! New Mexico gets 10 inches of rainfall a year- that’s super low! It’s also one of the reasons many people move to this beautiful state. Ya’ll love that sunshine! Compare that to the 73 inches the state of Washington gets each year, or the national average of 38 inches a year. Due to environmental factors like solar strength and elevation, the transpiration of snowpack is very high in New Mexico. As some of you know, we rely on snowpack for surface water supplies, especially our farmers! Most drinking water comes from groundwater, and if you didn’t know, groundwater is replenished by rainwater seeping through soil. Long story short, water is a precious commodity! Luckily, there are many things NM has done to mitigate high water consumption. It has passed building codes that require water efficient sinks, showers, toilets, etc, that have dramatically reduced our water footprint. But isn’t there always more we can do? For our gardening homies, we recommend water catchment barrels with hose hookups. This will help ease pressure on water availability, especially in the hot summer months when surface water is lower from lack of snowpack. And for people out there that love a good long shower, I don’t know….maybe just stop doing that. Wash up quickly and hop out! We aren’t the only creatures on this planet that rely on water supplies so please stop being water greedy. For our friends that have older, water intense toilets, throw (not literally) a brick in your toilet tank to reduce the amount of water that fills it. Or if you can, update your older appliances to low-flow ones. The New Mexico Gas Company will literally give you low-flow shower heads and sink heads for free through their website, that’s how much the state cares…it’s amazing! Okay sunshine fanatics, we hope this encouraged some of y’all to remember that the land we live on is dry as hell and there are many ways to respect our resources! Yay!
