Ombudspeople and outreach
Yesterday, I had the good fortune to chat with Darcy Bushnell who heads the Utton Ombudsman Program at the University of New Mexico. Specifically, she is tasked with outreach to folks dealing with water rights adjudications as executed by the Office of the State Engineer in New Mexico. Their office "does not provide legal advice," in Bushnell's words, but does offer some guidance on steps and what to anticipate next as part of the adjudication process. She related how some people react with such fear that they won't even open their mail from the State Engineer's office, worrying that it might be bad news.
In the afternoon, I met with Denise Bleakly, a fellow geographer who works as a GIS resource specialist at one of the national labs in Albuquerque. Denise has been doing independent volunteer work up in Embudo and Dixon, helping parciantes map their acequias with GPS units and hopes to provide some basic outline and base maps for the community to use soon. It's good work and a great example of outreach coming out of an office that has nothing to do, really, with acequias.
Both of these conversations, it should be noted, took place at the Frontier Restaurant across from UNM. A breakfast burrito goes a long way towards helping me understand adjudication as a process and what can be gained from doing more work with the public, in public. More later...
In the afternoon, I met with Denise Bleakly, a fellow geographer who works as a GIS resource specialist at one of the national labs in Albuquerque. Denise has been doing independent volunteer work up in Embudo and Dixon, helping parciantes map their acequias with GPS units and hopes to provide some basic outline and base maps for the community to use soon. It's good work and a great example of outreach coming out of an office that has nothing to do, really, with acequias.
Both of these conversations, it should be noted, took place at the Frontier Restaurant across from UNM. A breakfast burrito goes a long way towards helping me understand adjudication as a process and what can be gained from doing more work with the public, in public. More later...
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