The Turquoise Trail, one of America's Scenic Byways, in the future, may not be so scenic. This in itself would be a great tragedy as this is one of the best reasons New Mexico truly is the Land of Enchantment.
Keeping with that philosophy of uniqueness and individualism and independence, many New Mexican families choose to live in these Enchanted areas of the East Mountains, so named as they are on the back side of the absolutely incredible Sandia Mountains, to the east of Albuquerque.
The Turquoise Trail, or North 14, runs from Tijeras pass the Sandia Crest, San Antonito and several tiny mining towns all the way to Santa Fe. Along the way is Paa-ko, a fairly new community of a few luxurious homes built near a centuries old Tano Pueblo. Breathtakingly beautiful! Across from the community of Paa-ko, on the east side of The Turquoise Trail, north of Frost Road, is about 23,000 acres of New Mexico enchantment, known as Campbell Ranch.
Campbell Ranch and Vidler Water Company formed an LLC called Aquifer Science. Aquifer Science, in 2009, made application with the Office of the State Engineer to appropriate up to 1500 acre-feet a year of water from the Sandia Basin. This amount of water is roughly equivalent to the amount used by the City of Raton each year. The application was made for four wells up to 4000 feet deep. The intended use of the water is for a planned development of about 4000 homes and 2 golf courses. Hmm...one of America's great scenic byways?
I have a private well on my little piece of enchantment in the east mountains. I am a little ways south of this intended drilling and development but, I wonder if I should have my water depth checked? Perhaps I should jot down THIS number!!
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of myself only. For more information regarding this issue, visit www.deepwellprotest.org/
Comments(2)