I think Jim's point was the water in Bondad wasn't much better (if at all) from Farmington, so it probably wouldn't have made much difference. It was a gentle water grade all the way down to Bondad from Durango and I imagine they didn't use much water getting that far as Bondad was about 1/2 way to Farmington.
The big points he made were:
A. the water down there really sucked (actually it BLEW up the stack)
B. it was all they could do to get from Farmington back to Bondad on a tank of water.