saving water

Out here in Eldorado, there isn't a lot of spare water. Granted, we aren't yet under water restrictions, as we have been for quite a few summers, because it was such a wet winter. But the habit of saving water is still very much with us (though not yet, this year, to the point of putting a bucket under the shower until it starts to get warm). We have four large rain barrels under the canales - the wooden gutter spouts that jut out from the roof, and which pour with water after thunderstorms - and this rather ugly plastic tub under the tap from which the hose runs, so as to capture all the drips. It also, obviously enough, captures dead beetles.

Water is a big problem. It comes from community wells (unless one has one's own well). There's a proposal coming up at the county development review committee on Thursday for a 73-lot mobile home park just south of here - apparently this is a local landowner's attempt to get round the planning regulations that stopped him (ostensibly because of water issues) building cheap homes on this land a year or so back - land that's just outside Eldorado's own carefully regulated boundaries. Does one want a huge mobile home park a mile or so down the road? No. Does one feel like a NIMBY elitist saying so, when so many people can't afford decent housing of any kind in NM? Of course. Is there any way of reconciling these two positions? Doubtful.