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

This is a quick post to acknowledge Michael Cox's (2010) recent dissertation , completed at Indiana University, in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), on the Taos Valley acequias as an integrated social and ecological institution and system. Although largely positive on certain qualities or characteristics of many acequias, Cox sounds a warning note about economic factors that may lead to water leaving the acequia and it's worth the read. So even if acequias are able to weather one side of constant change (climate - global change), it's the economics and political economics that may ultimately create problems for them. It shows how the " double exposures " (Leichenko and O'Brien 2008) of global change and globalization may not work in balance when pressuring local resource management systems. This goes straight to the entire 3mb+ dissertation (.pdf) document if you want full details on this work. Congratulations Michael!

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...

Please see Aquadoc's site for the context, but here's the quick link to a paper by Pease (2010) on the difficulties of managing (and transferring) water in an unadjudicated basin in New Mexico. Yes, it's the Middle Rio Grande. There are lessons here for all Westerners, particularly if you live in an unadjudicated basin. h/t to MC . Addendum : The entire issue of the JCWRE is available on-line here . The article by Pease is only one of several on water re-allocation issues in the Western U.S.

A few weeks ago, I attended the ASEH (American Society for Environmental History) meetings in Portland, Oregon . As usual, it was a great set of sessions and associated, er... field activities. An intellectual highlight was getting to meet the author of " In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers ," Mark Carey , an historian who teaches at Washington & Lee (VA). Why would New Mexicans want to read about Andean society and climate change? Isn't this just about Peru? Obviously, New Mexico doesn't have any "glaciers" to worry about anymore, but the implications of the book for NM are numerous and revolve around the issue of snow-pack and future climate scenarios. The table of contents (below) from Carey ( 2010, Oxford U Press ) should also help people decide whether they need to buy it right now, or just look in their libraries for it. "Introduction 1. Melted Ice Destroys a City: Huaraz, 1941 2. Geo-Racial Disorder beneath Enchanted Lakes 3. Engineering the...