Pre-apocalypse water news and review for 2012

As we approach (just) the end of 2012, I wanted to make sure that several water-related stories circulating in parts of New Mexico stay vivid and don't fall out of circulation. As usual I've drawn heavily from La Jicarita. None of this is "news" to the people who have posted, shared, or spread these stories - it's only a way to reflect a bit on the links between them. Those links aren't always obvious. I'll start with what seems increasingly "natural" to the water wonks and local water experts in our region of the Southwest, drought.

As detailed by Kay Matthews on the newly-revitalized La Jicarita webazine, Placitas, on the NE side of Albuquerque, is just one small village dealing with the at least two-year drought of 2011-12. After last winter's La Nina low snow non-events in the Southwest, the 2012 winter precipitation season is off to a very slow start. Things look grim, with people actually praying for snow, as opposed to expecting it. The same has been true in our neck of the woods, Colorado Springs, for the past several years.

Early in November, however, there was big news from the state (of NM) high court: active water resource management (AWRM) was ruled as in fair standing and not unconstitutional or beyond the scope of the state's water code provisions on the state engineer's powers to manage water. A mouthful. What it means is that the OSE, and the state's new engineer Scott Verhines, can actively manage and move water even prior to full or partial adjudications. Does it represent a water governance failure or victory? Or is it something in between? I'll go with the latter for now - it's clear that some watersheds are in more dire conditions and actually might need a little external 'help' in sorting out neighborly water disputes. Stay tuned - this will likely get more interesting, not less, as AWRM actually gets rolled out by the state in a perhaps more active way.

As both drought, and fully (un)adjudicated waters converge, events get more interesting and querulous. Witness the latest filing for increasing water rights to the Sipapu ski resort, and the backlash from Taos County representatives and inhabitants who still irrigate. This could be written in almost any semi-arid mountain valley of the Western U.S., at least those where irrigators and recreation industries (like skiing) share the same water sources. Both sets of folks are concerned about drought, short-term, and the longer-term specter of climate change.

But it's not always a ski versus me issue in these basins. Even within the scope of local needs for drinking and sanitation water, versus acequia irrigation, "water is complicated" as Suzy Kane writes about a past local transfer case from the Taos area. This is the same transfer denial that I covered back in 2009-10 here on this blog, but now that denial has been reversed and the sold acre-feet are gone forever (in theory) from the local acequia. Irrigators of course need drinking water and sewage, and thus the story rightly ends in ambivalence.

We're now back in northern New Mexico, enjoying the remnant snowflakes of a cold front that moved through and provided a snowy backdrop to my writing. At a local coffee shop not far from where we're staying, one beret-clad gent said it best "It's still not enough snow." Until 2013, I hope you have a safe and restful holiday season.