Monitor hired to help determine fate of Santa Fe's Two Mile Pond
Feb. 21—The city of Santa Fe announced Wednesday it has taken a key step in determining the future of a popular wetlands area on the city's east side.
Water resource and environment consultant firm John Shomaker and Associates Inc. has been hired to conduct monitoring at Two Mile Pond and the first of three monitoring stations has been installed at the site, the city said in a news release.
Two Mile Pond, surrounded by The Nature Conservancy's Santa Fe Canyon Preserve off Upper Canyon Road, was reduced to about half its former size by the city in the summer to prevent surface water stagnation after a Santa Fe River diversion that had fed running water into it was removed.
The state had determined the diversion, installed in 2012 by The Nature Conservancy, was not legal.
Residents were outraged over the change, raising concerns about the environmental effects of the smaller pond, and rallied last year to preserve it.
City water officials said more study of the wetlands was needed to determine options for the pond, where the city does not hold water storage rights.
Richard Ellenberg, who lives in the Upper Canyon neighborhood, said any information the city is able to gather through the monitoring effort will be useful.
However, he said Wednesday, "I'm not sure they're asking the questions we would like to ask" — namely, what would it take to restore the pond?
Changes to the pond affect not just the Upper Canyon Road area but also the downstream flow of the Santa Fe River and deliveries to water rights holders, including acequia users.
"Understanding the hydrology better and understanding the ecology better will allow those decisions to be made more based on science than not," Water Division Director Jesse Roach said in the fall.
Monitoring is expected to last at least a season," Roach said at the time, but "probably multiple years."
The first station was installed at the confluence of the Santa Fe River and the Two Mile Pond return, the city said in a news release Wednesday.
"After obtaining access permission from landowners and compiling existing data related to the area, JSAI will install the remaining monitoring stations. The aim is to better understand how water moves through the system by quantifying the change in volume over time and distance," the news release says.
The company will use satellite imagery, GIS and field collection to monitor ecological changes at the pond and provide quarterly reports that will be published on the city's website.
Robert Findling, director of land protection and stewardship for The Nature Conservancy in New Mexico, said the city's consultant had asked for the organization's permission to install two additional monitoring stations. It granted permission for a station in the bypass channel adjacent to Upper Canyon Road above Cerro Gordo, he said, but denied a request for one in the natural channel of the Santa Fe River below the site of the former dam due to ecological concerns.
Since the elevation of the pond has been lowered, Findling said, the area, which used to be home to a beaver dam, has become an important wetland.
"We tried to be as accommodating as we could, but we felt the riparian area below the Old Stone Dam didn't warrant disturbance," he said.
