Geologist Disputes El Paso Water Shortage Claims

Dr. Phil Goodell is a giant and a legend. He's one of my heroes. He's an El Paso treasure. Nineteen years ago he began Celebration of Our Mountains because he wanted to take lay people on the same kinds of geology field trips that he took his students.  Yesterday he took me to different sites in El Paso that had been contaminated  by nasty things such as benzene, diesel fuel, leaded gasoline and more. He's thinking about putting together an "environmental" tour for this year's Celebration of Our Mountains. He recently emailed me because he disagreed with the prospect that El Paso was running out of water. He is far more optimistic than many and points to the desalinization plant as the main reason for his optimism. 

Here is what he wrote:

"I was born and raised in El Paso and graduated from El Paso High in 1960.  Drought and water scarcity were constant issues.  Water rationing was periodic; and when our student club wanted to raise funds by a ‘car washing event’,  we had to get special permission.

"I returned to EP in 1975 as a geologist/geochemist, and have taught at UTEP ever since.  I taught 7 years simultaneously in Juarez at UACJ.  My interests and professional activities have naturally expanded to include many environmental issues in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez, and students have received their degrees studying relevant topics and we have published scientific articles on some topics.  This has drawn me into regulatory and scientific data about the area.   The world forgets that the ‘low level nuclear waste environmental saga’ which took place here lasted over a decade.  Prof Dave Lemone, County Judge Luther Jones, and others participated in Phase 1 at Fort Hancock.

"Bill Addington and many others (including myself) participated in Phase 2 at Sierra Blanca, and we won. (Some from our group slept on the top of the Cordova Bridge and fasted for 30 days).  And then came ASARCO.  Whew!!  A history better remembered but we won that too.

"I don’t get involved in environmental issues as much, but some of the statements in your letter disturbed me, about water in El Paso.  When I was a kid, El Paso always only had 20 years supply left.  That was 1960.  When I returned to El Paso in 1975, El Paso had a 20 years supply of water left.   In the 1980s the PSB spent $10M, mainly in legal fees, challenging 'The Law of the West' that groundwater cannot be transported across state lines.  Through the 1990s El Paso always had a 20 year water supply left.  Look at the reports.  And then things begin to change.  The PSB went out and purchased ranches with water rights north and south of Van Horn, Texas, with the idea of future pipelines.  And then the 2000s came along, and, a near miracle:  the desal plant (desalinization).  The military would not have expanded Ft. Bliss is that had not happened.  Largest inland such plant in the world.    An incredible effect on El Paso’s resources.  You now read 30 years and 50 years for the future  water supply.  Actually, it is 100s of years. (Just don’t tell people, because they want to think otherwise.)  So, I do not believe El Paso is running out of water, and I think this is a false fear.  Import water?  PSB owns the ranches; you cannot import water from New Mexico or Mexico.  Under the El Paso airport, there is 9,000 feet (vertical) of salty water, and that extends to the NM state line.  So you calculate how many cubic miles of water that is that we have to send through a desal plant.  That’s why I say we have 100s of years supply.  However, we still must conserve water."

When Dr. Goodell speaks, I listen. We discussed this "difference" of ours briefly yesterday just before we said "goodbye". I'm not sure that we disagree on the quantity of the water but on the quality and maybe on the rate of recharge. With global warming and drought, the recharge of the Mesilla Bolson by the river will certainly decline. The interplay between desal and the Hueco Bolson is unclear. Salt contamination of wells near the airport occurred due to over-pumping the bolson thus the the desal wells are located to intercept brackish water from potable. As a friend of mine who eats, sleeps and drinks this stuff says: "If you can over-pump the bolson and draw salt, then you can over-pump the salt and draw potable."

All of this is as clear as mud to me. I gathered that Dr. Goodell doesn't dispute the quality of water but clearly he believes that the desal plant will make all of the water in the Hueco Bolson available to us for hundreds of years and not 20, 30 or 50. That and importation give him hope. I'm not confident that we will because of politics import water. He and I do agree that  desalinating the water and importing water will ultimately mean more expensive water. We both agree that "we still must conserve water."