eNewMexican

POURING IN SUPPORT

S.F. native fights for funding to finish museum at restored hydroelectric plant

By Nicholas Gilmore ngilmore@sfnewmexican.com

At the corner of Canyon Road and Upper Canyon Road sits the Water History Park and Museum, a 4.25-acre cityowned space surrounded by coyote fencing and carved with paved walkways under towering ponderosa pines.

After a 17-year effort to rehabilitate the park and restore a 19th century hydroelectric power plant on the site, one piece is still missing: the history.

Mac Watson, a Santa Fe native who lives nearby, hopes to secure funding to continue work on the museum, a decadeslong effort he has undertaken with other community members to provide an interactive way for visitors to learn about the contentious history of water and electricity in Santa Fe.

It’s a topic Watson, 82, said is still quite relevant to the region.

“We’ve got a wonderful place for recreation, and I think it’s really, really important to get the educational component up and running to tell people about these two important resources that are still, very immediately, with us,” he said.

Inside the 1895 power plant — which was restored and reelectrified more than 10 years years ago — sits a Pelton wheel, much like the ones that were used in the plant more than a century ago to generate electricity for the city. Water was then piped down from the higher-elevation

Two Mile Reservoir and shot across two Pelton wheels that drove an on-site generator.

That water flowed into a settling pond next door before being piped out to Santa Feans.

The restored power plant was designated significant and worthy of preservation by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation in 2013.

The interior of the plant is painted to show where the pipes once entered the building and directed water toward the turbines, but most of the interactive historical interpretation planned for the site still exists only in a master plan that was drafted several years ago for the Santa Fe Canyon Preservation Association.

Restoration work on the park has been funded by city park bond issuances in 2008 and 2010 as well as about $250,000 from the Legislature. Altogether, about $1.25 million has been spent on the site so far; it is estimated the project will cost a little over $1 million more to complete.

Richard Ellenberg, who is leading the charge for finances for the museum, said the group is seeking $350,000 from the Legislature this year after raising about $70,000 in private donations.

The money would fund a cement map behind the building, showing the system of acequias that ran throughout Santa Fe for centuries of agricultural use — with color coding to show the time period each one was vibrant — as well as interactive interpretive signs, which “while expensive” will “engage people’s attention,” Ellenberg wrote in a statement.

City spokeswoman Kristine Bustos-Mihelcic wrote in an email the Water History Park and Museum is currently the only museum owned by the city of Santa Fe.

“The city works closely with the Santa Fe Canyon Preservation Association,” Bustos-Mihelcic wrote. “We are very appreciative of their efforts, and appreciate the work they do to enhance the experience of the park.”

Watson and Ellenberg want the history of acequias in the region to be interpreted at the park, since the power plant stands as a physical reminder of the struggles for power and resources in Santa Fe after the Industrial Revolution.

“As we look upon water usage and water shortages and how we adjust water use for them, this is a crucial lesson to understand,” Ellenberg told The New Mexican. “When someone gets and someone loses water, it has huge, long-term impacts on the society and the community.”

The water that was routed through the hydroelectric plant — and later sold by the Santa Fe Water and Light Company — was taken from the Santa Fe River after county commissioners signed off water rights to the company. Water that ran from the river through the democratically controlled acequias for hundreds of years was a public resource until the 1880s, when it became a commodity.

Ellenberg and Watson believe that change offers a crucial lesson about resources and culture that the park should impart.

Both men talk about the ultimately futile protests of Hispanic farmers who tried to stop the construction of the Old Stone Dam in the 1890s as well as the subsequent Two Mile Reservoir that both impounded water from the Santa Fe River and denied water to acequias.

An 1881 petition marked many locals’ opposition to the coming changes: “We, the majority of the people of Santa Fe, declare and maintain that whereas we have been entitled to the water in the Santa Fe River since the conquest of this country, have used it for the purpose of irrigating our fields and quenching the thirst of our families, that the water has been given to us by the sublime will of God.”

In tying the century-old struggles to current-day decisions over resources, Watson referred to modern efforts to find solutions to potential water shortages, as well as contention over a proposed merger involving the Public Service Company of New Mexico.

Ellenberg said it’s imperative for the public to learn about the past since the impact of such decisions can have far-reaching cultural implications.

“We need to be aware as we make these decisions, they’re not just decisions about 20 acre-feet of water,” he said. “They’re decisions about what we want our society and economy to look like.”

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2023-01-31T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-31T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://enewmexican.pressreader.com/article/281870122580513

Santa Fe New Mexican