Letter to the Editor: Tularosa’s Water Crisis Is a Failure of Municipal Choice, Not an "Act of God" By Glenn Bell

To the Editor:

Recent reporting on Tularosa’s emergency water ban repeats local government talking points, framing empty tanks and dry lawns as an unavoidable "Act of God." A review of public records, federal disaster declarations, and hydrological data reveals a far different reality: this crisis was entirely manufactured by administrative neglect.

When the South Fork and Salt Fires burned across Otero and Lincoln counties, federal and state emergency managers issued explicit hydrological warnings: post-fire ash, soot, and mud runoff would threaten downstream water intakes during subsequent monsoon cycles. In response, President Biden approved FEMA Disaster Declaration DR-4795, making millions of dollars in Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funds available to Otero County and the Village of Tularosa to build pre-settling basins, sediment traps, and alternative water infrastructure.

What did municipal and county leadership do with this window of opportunity? Nothing.

When monsoons inevitably washed ash down Tularosa Creek, the village intake was overwhelmed by mud and forced to shut down. Had leadership deployed federal hazard mitigation dollars over the prior two years, pre-settling filtration would have processed the intake.

Worse still, leadership completely ignored clean water sitting directly above them. Under New Mexico State Engineer policy, rooftop rainwater harvesting is 100% legal and requires no water rights permits. Tularosa’s Approx.15 municipal and school buildings represent roughly 80,000 square feet of roof space. Equipping public facilities and residential homes with simple gutter and cistern catchment systems using available federal resilience funds would have harvested millions of gallons of pristine, ash-free water during monsoon rains—bypassing the contaminated creek entirely.

Compounding this supply-side failure is baseline demand neglect. As early as May 2019, independent testing on Tularosa City Hall’s own lawn proved that biological soil amendments could reduce turf irrigation demand by 33% to 70% while restoring green space. Instead of adopting biological water conservation across 26.6 acres of public grounds to keep municipal tanks full, the village maintained flood-irrigation practices, wasting over 311 million gallons of water.

Under Article II, Sections 4 and 20 of the New Mexico Constitution, citizens have an inalienable right to protect their property, and government cannot inflict uncompensated damage on private property. By choosing not to filter intake water, choosing not to harvest rainwater, and choosing not to manage root-zone water demand, local officials forced an emergency ban that has stripped $12.6 million to $37.9 million in real estate value from Tularosa homeowners while creating a severe wildfire hazard.

Tularosa families are not suffering from a lack of rainfall. They are suffering from a lack of leadership. It is time for the Village Board and County Commissioners to answer for the funding they ignored and the choices that brought our community to its knees.

Glenn Bell

Tularosa, NM

Tularosa Basin Resident & Property Owner