Neighbors clean historic acequia before spring flows

Apr. 20—Miche Bové Garcia, one of a new generation of commissioners recently elected to oversee the Acequia Madre de Santa Fe, is "really beginning to appreciate" the work her father and other longtime commissioners have done to preserve the historic irrigation ditch.

"It's much more complicated than just water running through the city," Bové Garcia said. "It's been sometimes an uphill battle to make sure people understand how precious this is."

The Acequia Madre runs about seven miles from a head gate on the Santa Fe River near Patrick Smith Park to the village of Agua Fría. It is believed to be at least as old as Santa Fe, founded in 1610. Though fewer Santa Feans rely on its flows today than in centuries past, people still use and greatly value the acequia, participants in an annual cleanup said.

A few dozen neighbors gathered near Acequia Madre Elementary School on Saturday morning for what leaders called the 414th annual cleaning of the ditch. Volunteers filled up city dump trucks with bags of leaves, brush and the occasional piece of trash. After lunch, the group planned to visit the head gate to let a small amount of water through, the first of 2024 — a cleanup tradition, Bové Garcia said.

Cleaning of the lower acequia, which accumulates litter and trash from homeless encampments, may continue for days, commissioners said.

Acequia Madre waters don't reach that far, however. The Santa Fe River does not have enough flows to allow the ditch to run its full length.

"I don't know how many years we haven't been able to get enough water to get to Agua Fría," said Phillip Bové, a commissioner since around 1974 who, along with former Mayordomo Michael Montoya, stepped down in March to pass the role to a younger generation.

Getting water to water rights holders on the acequia is one thing the community ditch association will continue to try to resolve with the city of Santa Fe and the state Engineer's Office, particularly because the Montoya family in Agua Fría village continues to use water rights to farm, Bové said.

Currently, 44 property owners use water from the acequia, he said. The number of water users has actually increased since the 1970s — when 16 people were using the ditch for irrigation — because the community ditch association secured a special permit through which water rights owners can lease their rights to others, he added.

That's the case for new Acequia Madre Commissioner Dave Staples, who lives in a condominium complex near the acequia that leases water rights to irrigate plants on the property.

"I think this is one of the most important things in the whole city, certainly one of the most historic, so it's definitely worth preserving," Staples said while raking leaves out of the ditch Saturday. "That's the main reason I want to be involved and stay involved. ... It's important to me to keep it operating as best we can with a limited amount of water."

Three recently elected commissioners — Staples, Bové Garcia and Mayordomo Eric Montoya — all said they are learning how to preserve the acequia.

"I'm not only following the family tradition," said Bové Garcia, Bové's daughter, "it's that, as you see the world change and history sort of disappear, I'm so afraid that if I don't step up, who will?"

She added, "We don't have that many young people on the street. It's become this older generation, second-home sort of area, and so you're afraid that someone will just say, 'Oh, I love [the acequia] when it's running,' but they won't really have the sense of the history with it because they didn't grow up with it like I did."

Rebecca Crutchfield, who uses the acequia to water a dozen fruit trees in her backyard, agreed the upper Acequia Madre neighborhood has changed a lot since she moved to Santa Fe in 1986.

"Back in the day, it was a pretty tight community," she said. "Not everybody wants to live in this kind of a neighborhood and do the work, but to me, it's the real thing about Santa Fe ... a real taking care of each other and knowing what's going on in the neighborhood. I feel like a lot of that has changed because now it seems like so many people are not here full time or not committed to being part of the community."

Still, annual cleanups have long knitted the community together, many participants said as they accepted water, cookies and other supplies from neighbors driving up and down the acequia Saturday.

"The acequia really attaches people together; it's wonderful," Bové Garcia said.

The community-oriented aspect of the acequia is what drew Matthew Burritt, the parent of an Acequia Madre Elementary student, to the cleanup with his 7-year-old son, Oliver.

"We don't rely on the acequia for our food as we once did, but I think it's amazing that this is 400, 500 years old," Burritt said. "I just think it's important to keep these kinds of community traditions alive."