Albuquerque approves stormwater fee to fund green infrastructure projects

Albuquerque residents will soon pay a small stormwater charge on water bills, and city leaders say the money will go to projects designed to catch rain where it falls instead of letting it wash untreated toward the Rio Grande, which remains the metro’s drinking water supply. The new fund is meant to finance green stormwater infrastructure that can reduce flooding, filter pollutants and help replenish groundwater in neighborhoods that feel the impact of larger storms first.

The Albuquerque City Council approved the fee to create a dedicated, utility-style funding stream for future projects. For most households, the charge averages about $2 a month, is based on water use and includes discounts for low-income residents. The city said the fee is expected to appear on bills in August, tying the cost directly to a program officials say is necessary as the metro faces another extreme-drought year.

Some of the clearest examples are already visible on the ground. At Dolores Huerta Park, runoff is directed into a basin that feeds treatment, while at Mary Fox Park, landscaping and sidewalks were engineered to collect and clean water. In Pueblo Alto and Mile Hi, Albuquerque’s first neighborhood-scale green stormwater infrastructure project began construction in February 2026, with the goal of helping blocks where underground drainage can no longer handle larger storms. City planners say curb cuts and curb cores in the public right-of-way are voluntary tools that send street runoff into vegetated basins or swales, cutting ponding and putting the water to work on local plants.

The policy has been building for years. In 2024, the council adopted Ordinance O-2024-008 to add a definition of arid adapted green stormwater infrastructure to the Complete Streets ordinance and to include green stormwater infrastructure in city medians and landscape buffers. The city says its stormwater-quality work operates under an Environmental Protection Agency Phase I Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System permit, with river protection and cleaner stormwater among the program’s top priorities. That broader shift also lines up with the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s Water 2120 strategy, which adds storm-water capture to a long-term plan to stretch supplies through wastewater reuse and aquifer storage and recovery.

The regional picture is widening as well. In the South Valley, Bernalillo County approved $184,818 on April 14, 2026, for Phase 3 improvements at Dolores Huerta Gateway Park, and county standards for green stormwater infrastructure now point to the arid Middle Rio Grande Valley, not just a single city project. For residents watching street flooding, park runoff and river health block by block, the new fee is now tied to a concrete set of places where the benefits are supposed to show up first.