Since 1959, the city has provided 700,000 gallons of treated effluent to Santa Fe Country Club each day free of charge so that the club could water its golf course. The city’s complaint, filed July 22, claims the country club has “repeatedly and materially breached” the [agreement] by taking and using well over the contractual limit of 700,000 gallons per day on numerous occasions in recent years. The club made it clear, the lawsuit says, that it would not hesitate to enforce the agreement in court and seek damages if need be. City spokesman David Herndon says the city is not trying to “end the Santa Fe Country Club’s access to water. The City seeks a new contractual arrangement that is fair and reasonable.”
The city of Santa Fe, N.M. has filed a lawsuit against Santa Fe Country Club in an apparent attempt to end a decades-long agreement under which the city each day provides 700,000 gallons of treated effluent sot the club could water its golf course, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Every day. Free of charge.
Well, not totally free of charge: The original contract from 1959 shows the semiprivate club made a one-time payment of $10 at the outset of the agreement, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Since then, the city has supplied the club with “over five billion gallons” of treated effluent water with an approximate value of “tens of millions of dollars,” for no additional compensation, according to the complaint recently filed in state District Court.
The water is pumped from the city’s wastewater treatment plant during the day to two storage ponds on the country club’s grounds and applied to the fairways at night or early in the morning, according to a 2013 reclaimed water plan, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
The benefit to the city under this antique agreement, the lawsuit says, was city residents who were not members of the club could play golf at the course — then the only one in the city — for “reasonable greens fees,” albeit only at “nonpreferred tee times.”
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that when the deal was struck in 1959 — and updated in 1964 — the lawsuit says, “golf was a sport generally played by a small segment of the Santa Fe population.
“Thus, while these agreements conferred on the [country club] the substantial benefit of being able to create and maintain a golf club using irrigation water from the City, the contractual benefit to the City, and its citizens is quite small.”
However, by the mid-1990s the sport had exploded in popularity, the lawsuit says, while at the same time the effluent water was becoming more valuable.
The city built its own public golf course — Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe — in 1998, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
“If the benefit to the City … was questionable before 1998, the insufficiency of the benefit to the City was beyond question after the City opened its own public golf course,” the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, the country club through its lawyers “vigorously advocated preserving the highly favorable deal,” in 1998, making it clear any attempt by the city to terminate the agreement would create substantial civil liability.
The club made it clear, the lawsuit says, that it would not hesitate to enforce the agreement in court and seek damages if need be, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Since 1998, the city has provided an estimated $7.6 million worth of treated effluent to the county club under the agreement, according to the lawsuit.
The city’s complaint claims the country club has “repeatedly and materially breached” the [agreement] by taking and using well over the contractual limit of 700,000 gallons per day on numerous occasions in recent years. Between 2018 and 2022, the club exceeded its daily limit on 143 different days, exceeding its daily allotment by more than 22 million gallons, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint for breach of contract and declaratory judgement, filed July 22 in Santa Fe, points to each of those exceedances as a justification for ending the deal, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
The city also is also seeking to collect “damages” incurred each time the club used more than 700,000 gallons a day, according to the lawsuit.
David Nowell — the country club’s general manager and director of golf — didn’t respond to messages seeking comment, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Taking the club to court was not the city’s first attempt at solving the problem, spokesman David Herndon wrote in an email to the Santa Fe New Mexican July 26.
“The City has tried repeatedly to collaborate with the Santa Fe Country Club to enter a contract that is consistent with other City contracts for treated effluent: including a fixed duration and payment,” Herndon wrote. “The Club refuses to discuss any contract revision that would include payment or a definite term.
“The City does not desire to end the Santa Fe Country Club’s access to water,” Herndon added. “The City seeks a new contractual arrangement that is fair and reasonable.”
As of 2013, Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe — which also is irrigated with city effluent — had a water budget of about 900,000 gallons per day worth about $536,000 per year, according to a city reclaimed wastewater resource plan, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. The city valued the effluent used by the Country Club at about $395,000 per year at the time.
The city’s course used an average of 840,000 gallons per day in 2020, Herndon wrote.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.