Unsettled Waters: A blog on water rights in the American West

As the world's leading politicians are meeting, hoping to hammer out some piddling gesture towards solving climate change (as a contruct) by reducing emissions, this is simply a brief "poke in the eye" at prior appropriation . Happy Thanksgiving New Mexico! That we have the "first in time, first in right" attitude towards water, and apparently not much else, is simply ludicrous. And if the Western States hope to really enforce future "calls on water" by senior water rights holders, they're dreaming at this point. Even in Colorado, the state engineer...excuse me, State Engineer, can issue a " futile call " (scroll down to 'f') if trying to enforce a senior right will result in no water. Remember 2002? You would if you were in Colorado or New Mexico at the time; depending on the data you consult or the model you believe in, it may have been the dryest year in 300+ years. It made the early 1950s drought look cuddly for these two s...

Yesterday, Saturday, November 21st, I attended the umpteenth Junta de las Acequias y Mercedes . It was held in the Oñate Monument and Cultural Center in Alcalde, New Mexico. This event, organized by Rio Arriba County (Commissioners) and its Planning Department representatives, brings together parciantes and land grant commission members from around the state to discuss what might be politely termed the "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo " cultural hangover. To be clear, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo applied to all residents of New Mexico at the time of 'transfer' to the United States from Mexico. While Hispanos recite this Treaty like mantra, it's only recently that the Pueblos have started investigating what the Treaty meant and means for them currently (see Hopi case). And I mean this with all due respect - what's crucial to understand here is how imminent and current the land grants (not to mention acequia) issue is for residents of New Mexico of Hispano-M...

One of the most fascinating aspects about acequias in New Mexico is the apparent "division of labor" for these ditches and institutions. This morning, I attended the latest meeting of the New Mexico Acequia Commission , a body of representative appointed by the Governor of the state. It is currently chaired by Ralph Vigil, also an employee of the New Mexico Acequia Association . There's no accident here, as Ralph himself made clear, since the Commission (a government body) used to get its budget indirectly through the NMAA, as part of the latter's state funding specified carving out a chunk from its governance for the Acequia Commission's use. The NMAA is a non-profit, not a state agency. So, no wonder sometimes people are confused about who does what, in what capacity, and for whom. The main "action item" on the agenda for this morning would be predictable for most state employees in the current economy: budget cuts, and budget freezes . In this case,...

Just returned from a long and fruitful discussion with New Mexico's State Engineer, John D'Antonio, and his OSE associate and Acequia Liaison, Hilario Rubio. It is always easier to write theoretically, and in diatribe mode, as a social scientist when state "officials" are depersonalized (as is common). Among the topics discussed: acequia responses to adjudication (multiple and regionally variable), Active Water Resource Management and its continuing legal and administrative challenges across the state, the Mimbres River, the Mora Valley, and areas that have been adjudicated (Red River, Mimbres), are in the process of being adjudicated (Pojoaque Valley, Taos Valley, Chama), or where adjudication has not even begun (Middle Rio Grande). They have my sympathy in trying to actively manage water resources in an arid state with essentially three operational sets of water law in place: federal and Pueblo reserve rights, Spanish and Mexican arrangements for water-sharing (...

One of the central concerns of the State Engineer, and of the Utton Transboundary Resource Center (at UNM), is the public image and message of the on-going adjudication process. People tend to react negatively when they receive any kind of legal document, and it's no wonder that so many don't respond to initial offers of judgment or consent orders, so the "back end" work on this is time-consuming. Just look at the map to see the number of in-process adjudications, and this figures does not include the real beast that has yet to start, the Middle Rio Grande. I've written about Darcy Bushnell's efforts already at the Utton Center and her role in the Ombudsman Program. One of her central challenges is to facilitate public understanding of adjudication and I think this video in English and Spanish does a good job in explaining the process. Adjudication reform is also under discussion, because of the conflicts generated within and because of adjudication as ...

I sat in on two court meetings, overseen by a Special Master for the Pecos River (adjudications) this morning, the first on the shortage-sharing agreements in the larger Las Vegas area, the second on the Pecos River adjudication itself. Sharing a "shortage" may seem like negative accounting to some, but it has a long and rich customary history in New Mexico. I will try not to be wordy, which is difficult when you have to explain concepts like "legal threshold" (great euphemism), but it was both a dull and interesting moment to observe. These proceedings can inherently be dull because it is a discussion, most of the time, about agreements already entered into, a kind of status check so that the Special Master can observe if on-going negotiations and settlements between parties (say, Las Vegas and the regional acequias) are having their desired effect, hopefully a long-term settlement. Part A of the proceedings this morning was really about the now remanded Pueblo...

Although I was in Albuquerque yesterday to give a public lecture on my upcoming book , which addresses private cattle ranching in northern Mexico, a special afternoon treat was in store. I jumped into Paul Matthews ' pick-up and we did a quick and selective survey of urban flood control structures on the east side of the city that sprawls up the Sandia Mountains. It reminded again how scaled water is, whether it's about delivery or flood control, too little or too much, in the greater Southwest. The first shot shows some upslope watershed control features , many using the natural channels of arroyos, while the later ones emphasize the accumulating scale of urban flood waters in a city that has seen its fair share of flooding in the past. What's grim about a few of these obvious hydrologic settings is that real estate doesn't care too much about flood issues. It's not just the Mississippi where people have set vulnerable, if pricey in this case, housing smack in ...

We attended the celebratory "matanza" yesterday in the nearby village of Chupadero ; this was to commemorate, if not celebrate outright, the recent and perhaps temporary victory of the acequia in a water rights transfer case. At stake was the village's ditch waters that run through the physical acequia in Chupadero. An applicant, or plaintiff, had tried to transfer water rights along the stream and also between surface rights to groundwater rights, and the commissioners denied that request. While decided administratively by the acequia's commissioners, the fact that the plaintiffs (folks hoping to transfer water along and out of the ditch in Chupadero) dropped their appeal was significant. A new state statute, from 2003, gives acequias the ability to approve or deny transfers of waters especially when "impairment" of ditch water is at stake. This new rule is getting severely tested as you might expect, but there just haven't been that many (formal) cases...

We were able to take an actual personal day, yesterday, and visit some places that I'd never seen before along the Jemez River, and places that I hadn't seen in more than a decade (Jemez Caldera, El Valle). We stopped first at the White Rock overlook, for a nice shot of the Buckman Diversion intake on the Rio Grande, where the soon-to-be constructed bladder dam will be finished, so that Santa Fe can start diverting its "share" of SanJuan/Chama water (~5000 afy). But let's be honest, it's not new water, it's a substitution: surface water for the groundwater pumps currently operating in the Buckman field. Is it a better choice? The Buckman plan does use at least a renewable (surface) water supply, in lieu of an unsustainable (groundwater) withdrawal rate in the area west of the city. For me, it's a bit like changing drugs, from heroine to something lesser, say cigarrettes...or changing dealers. Not surprisingly, Las Campanas, one of the primary "co...

Today I went up to Dixon, via the high road, for a discussion-cum-interview with Stanley Crawford, author of several works relevant to this blog ( Mayordomo , A Garlic Testament , The River in Winter ). As a former mayordomo for his acequia (del Bosque, in first photo), I wanted his take on how governance has changed on the ditch, if at all. While acequia bylaws are now de rigueur if the ditch seeks state and federal funding for projects and repairs, he called them a fallback set of rules. In other words, if you have to use them a lot, the ditch is in trouble. Most people don't bother to read the full set of bylaws. So the good news, if one can call it that, is that governance has changed little over the last 30-40 years in Dixon, at least on his ditch. The typical, but occasional, lawsuit, and dealing with the alphabet suit of state and federal agencies responsible for water managment, were par for this acequia's course. Unlike acequias living on the encroaching suburban ...

One of my next priorities is to understand the more recent OSE strategy of Active Water Resource Management. This is an attempt to accelerate water management, whether the basin is fully adjudicated (such as the Mimbres Valley ), or unadjudicated ( Rio Gallinas ). Now, if only I could get a hold of someone in each area. What this amounts to, in the best-case scenario, is appointing a "mayordomo" for mayordomos, a Water Master for each basin to negotiate water use. The sarcastic side of me wants to think of it as "Insert mid-management Pharaoh here (   )" -- The worst-case scenario means that AWRM will break traditional management and authority roles, especially that of mayordomo, along ditches that have pretty much well managed their affairs without this form of governmentality. Are we witnessing the latest incarnation of the "rule of experts" as Timothy Mitchell might put it? As part of this effort, the OSE is installing water meters and flumes for meas...