*The views expressed in this blog are mine and do not represent those of the organizations discussed*
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An interesting symposium I just might have to attend and organized by the folks at New Mexico State University on acequia hydrology. That's all for today...
As I hinted a few days ago, there are some remarkable parallels between the historical geographies of water in the country (" S tate") of Spain and the s tate of New Mexico. I credit the information on Spain to a colleague in anthropology at McGill University (call him Ismael ; no, really). See back a couple of posts but Ismael's "Modernizing mountain water" appears in the co-edited volume Water, Place, and Equity (MIT Press, 2008)*, and is focused on the transformation of Pyrenean water use and its governance, largely on the Spanish side. I have put in a coarse table to outline the parallels between Spain's legal history on water and those of New Mexico. Table - NM by author, Spain from Vaccaro 2008 (230) TIME LINE New Mexico ...
Back in the game for blogging! I had to take some time off to finish up the book on water rights and adjudications in New Mexico and that is now submitted to a press to be named later (don't want to count the chickens before...yeah). The book examines what we gain by tracking what water rights adjudications did to neighborly relations, in uncovering old wounds, and producing new water anxieties across the state. I'll be teasing this out over the next year or two as the book is produced and then released. For me, it's a relief that the first submission version is done and in. It almost did me in! There is something anti-climactic about working in the field, archives, and in the literature of water for 10 years and simply hitting the "send" button on e-mail to submit. I still remember having to send physical (and multiple) copies on paper for the first book. It's been a warm-ish winter and an unstable spring, with some unpredictable late winter-like storms...
I've been remiss. A few developments have occurred in New Mexico, mostly the passing of the Lower Rio Grande adjudication court deadline for the state (NM) to offer the feds (Reclamation) a quantified water right, and that date passed (April 8th). That quantified number will occur whether or not the Reclamation folks actually had or acquired (legally) such water rights at the time that Elephant Butte Dam was constructed. As always, the good folks at Jicarita have been watching this closely. And see Sig Silber's story about the LRG and the ongoing dispute about whether EBID was founded as part of an illegal 'taking' of a private dam and canal company. Hot stuff - and there's an update, too, on LRG proceedings here . Good news for irrigators in most of New Mexico is that the winter snowpack has piled up, thanks to ENSO, and unless all that snow melts in June, farmers and ranchers should have a decent 2010 growing season. Most of the canals are cleaned around the...
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