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

Quickpost: I know what I promised, and that I'm breaking it. More on Andean glaciers, melt-water, in the next post (honest). Here, I'm just going to point out Aquadoc's latest post on exempt wells in the West, and his useful (.pdf) document written by Bracken on this really good overview of Western States and their differential policies on exempt wells. Treatment on New Mexico starts on p 171(-175) if you want a short-cut on reading. Fascinating reading, and a good follow-up to the original post from February on the problem of domestic wells.

A colleague of mine in geography at Syracuse University, Farhana Sultana , has organized a mini-conference on the Right to Water . It runs all day today and tomorrow (March 29th and 30th). The schedule is packed with interesting sessions, speakers, and time for feedback and dialogue; too many conferences, so little time (and money) on sabbatical (?). But it's encouraging to see more geographers entering, or committed to, the fray on water issues. Indirectly, Aquadoc highlighted another geo-moment from the National Academy of Sciences on the future of the geographic sciences -- typically laden and leaden with technohype and praise for GIS. I understand this, even if my head aches with the internal mantra of "the solutions are not technical." And I say this as someone who teaches from this perspective of environmental geography and GIS (it's what I teach!), so I feel free to critique my own tribe. Another fellow hydroblogger, David Zetland , has been sounding off on t...

Quickpost : There's another competitor emerging to the recent plans by Mr. Million (the name is not a joke, but how suitable); a new group is proposing an alternate pipeline transfer plan between the Colorado River basin and Front Range cities. [This story courtesy of John Fleck's connections.] Colorado has already perfected water the--, er, inter-basin water transfers, as seen in the map. How much longer before we're all living in some simulacrum of nature? Is there such thing as a natural river anymore? Most of my attention this past year has been focused on individuals with water rights, or the community's access and rights to water (acequias), in New Mexico. But this is what happens when states and large metropolitan areas increasingly assert their own allocations and "paper rights" to "wet water." It's also how paper rights translate to power in a basin. And this kind of pipe-rattling does little to benefit interstate diplomacy for rive...

A recent post on the TVAA pages caught my eye, written by a real estate agent based in Espanola. It reads nicely, and it's meant for a wider audience looking to buy property. This is not an anti-property, anti-real estate screed, it's merely a reminder. One of the easiest ways to protect acequias as a ditch, institution, and their important easements is to spread the word about them prior to new property ownership. While I can appreciate this column for what it is, a kind of public-service announcement meets real estate moxy, how many people will stumble on this? Will the dude from Minnesota find this post or clipping from the paper? Wouldn't acequias in the region be better served if property title codes or statutes were changed to protect the ditch and institution? This way local knowledge could be incorporated into title deeds. Or at least it lays the groundwork for better neighborly interactions if a purchaser has a heads-up. I've mentioned this in passing to se...

I have just returned from a fairly full week in Portland, Oregon, a veritable land of water compared to New Mexico and most of the Southwest of course. The trip was for the American Society for Environmental History meetings, and I was fairly disciplined about going to sessions for the first couple of days. The highlight, in educational terms, was the river-boat tour of the Willamette River on Wednesday, prior to the conference start. For many who don't know the region or the Pacific Northwest well, and here I include myself, what was remarkable was the concentration and rich multi-layered effects of heavy industry on the river. Here, in Ecotopia as Joel Garreau once called the Northwest ( Nine Nations of North America ), it was pretty unexpected to see and hear about the heavy human use and footprint. Industry still crowds the river bank of the Willamette that is pretty startling; even new development in the city requires only a 25 foot setback from the river (which is nothing...

Today's post by John Fleck is worth reading - an update, or re-cap, on a plan to move water from the Fort Sumner area of northeastern New Mexico and pump it to Santa Fe. There's already a local version of this near Santa Fe, which I posted about long ago . Fascinating - let's call this the "big water" news of the year for the capital, or at least potential news. Folks along the lower Pecos River are not crazy about the idea , as is understandable. Colorado has already re-engineered its "natural" hydrology so much, it's tough to actually way what mountain trickle becomes the Arkansas or Colorado Rivers anymore. The other update has to do with another transfer up in the Taos area, which you can read about in the Taos Daily News (probably in a couple of weeks) once a decision has been made. In the mean-time the commissioners have scheduled a meeting, this one found courtesy of the TVAA , with public notice posted below for those interested and able...

I am about to attend the 2010 meetings of the American Society for Environmental History in Portland, Oregon, this coming week (March 10-14). One notion that has seemed both appealing and perplexing is whether there is an environmental history to adjudication in New Mexico. Is this possible? Can a river basin lawsuit have its own environmental history and unintended consequences? What changes in land cover (vegetation, crops) and land use (residential, agricultural, etc..) are provoked by getting sued over water rights? There are some fantastic water sessions at this year's ASEH whose theme is " currents of change ." And I'll be torn three ways, between Southwest water content, East Asian water themes, and European water governance sessions. One of the real, palpable, observations made in New Mexico on adjudication was how it provoked irrigators to be quite vigilant over their fields. This is old news to irrigators, of course, but nevertheless a good human equivale...

Disclaimer : This is a self-serving post as it discusses the release of my first book . So, finally, Private Revolutions is due out this month. You can find it at the press site itself, of course, but also at Amazon and Barnes & Noble , or Powell's too (usually a little cheaper at the first two). The premise of this book is fairly simple, even if the years of work that went into it were not simple at all: Ranchers are not an amorphous body of rural evil-doers oppressing communal farmers and ranchers in Mexico. Aaron Bobrow-Strain has also made this argument for Chiapas, Mexico, in his own book . In fact, many "private" ranch owners are also still communal farmers and herders, contra the work of so much social science in Mexico (and Latin America in general). I also give some attention to the larger context of ranching, such as gender, economics, and the ecology and management of private ranches in northern Mexico (read: Sonora ). I'm happy it's out, an...

From Colorado Springs, this is a quick-post update on the Lower Rio Grande adjudication issues we've touched on here before - namely, the long-standing dispute over the Elephant Butte Dam (aka the Rio Grande Project). Of all my interviews, and interactions, during the last 7 months spent in New Mexico - this may have been the thorniest and the one topic where an interested party said they were "not able" to talk to me because of this pending litigation. The problem is that, even without a conversation from said source, people continue to write about it , talk about it. Fun stuff. Here's a story from the Rio Grande (NM) chapter of the Sierra Club on the LRG and the tangled mess of private, state, and federal interests involved. The great-grandson of Nathan Boyd, Scott, continues to pursue this in Gerald Valentine's court in southern New Mexico. The next date to watch: April 8, 2010 - the day the state of New Mexico has to make the feds an "offer of judgmen...

I cannot help but point out a story by Emily Green , ("the screw turns", Feb 24), about the administrative reversal in Nevada on the pumping plans, that were struck down a few weeks ago by the Nevada Supreme Court. ChanceofRain also provides more background here , on that original decision by the courts. Update : the Governor (NV) has promised not to protect the SNWA.* This simply underlines what I've been thinking for months - the "state" as some conceptual and abstract boogeyman does not exist, it is riddled with contradictions, and in this case it is the separation of powers (executive-judiciary) that are stake. The state does not "see" subjects as a single entity, the state simply uses different hands to make different decisions (sometimes blindly). I'm thinking of Devi , the Hindu Goddess , with multiple arms in this scenario. Maybe that's unfair to her (no blasphemy intended). *And it gets even more confusing when private interests (sure,...

On the 22nd, the Bounds case was heard in the New Mexico Court of Appeals. This case, based out of a dispute in southwestern New Mexico, has a fairy long track record now. You can see one take on this dispute, from 2008, courtesy of Aquadoc. The same source also put together a more recent update , prior to the hearing on the 22nd, with some helpful materials and links also (courtesy MC!). The plaintiffs have allegedly become a real thorn to both state-level agencies and to their neighbors as they try to enforce rigid prior appropriation enforcement, in this case for domestic well impairment effects. But in some ways, it forces the hand for both OSE domestic well directives and New Mexico counties to address the schizophrenic water policies that are everywhere a problem in the west. Frank Titus remarked on this back in 2005 ( partial story link here ). How can the left hand manage water resources, if the right hand is forced to issue permits without regard to third party effects...

This will be only a brief "policy" note on blog interaction - I will no longer be letting " anonymous " folks vote or make comments - too much  spam to deal with (2-3 a day), and I'd rather have real exchanges with people who aren't afraid of being identified. This should not be a big deal, considering I have no real "power" to do anything to anybody in New Mexico. So, that's it - no other news to report, but see last week's updated post on Taos ( Death by a Thousand Straws ) for an update, courtesy of the Taos News , on water transfers and acequias. And please visit Emily Green's brilliant and regular Sunday "best of" water stories, in her " week that was " feature. - updated 3:29pm Sunday (2.21.10)

The latest on-line NYTimes story on the Klamath River settlement caught my eye this morning. This stands in sharp contrast to the other, on-going, soap-opera-like fish vs agriculture story in the American West: the delta smelt saga. John Fleck , Emily Green , and Michael Campana have all posted updates and fired broad-sides at the political tactics in California's smelt case. The esteemed senator from California (DiFi) was drawing analogies for the smelt with New Mexico's silvery minnow , in arguing for some in-flow exceptions (actually, exemptions). Few bought the comparison . Apparently, irrigation districts seem to have a longer (political) life-span than most dams, but that should come as no surprise. As I've said a few times before on these pages, it's not just about money, it's about votes. Dams don't vote - farmers do. And despite the court case name , fish don't sue people. But I do find this Klamath development a bit heartening after hearing of th...

I attended yet another special hearing organized by an acequia commission last night, this time up in the Taos area. For those who saw the last post, this is the Pacheco Community ditch we're talking about, near Ranchos de Taos (south side of town). For residents in and near Taos, it's a familiar story; someone wants to move water away from the ditch for a domestic & sanitation district (essentially a domestic mutual, but bigger, and better funded). In this case, it's the El Valle Water and Sanitation District. Apparently, they have to acquire surface water rights on the order of some 160+af to off-set their groundwater pumping in the area, since the pumps affect all of the tributary drainages in the area. In this particular hearing, a Mr. S------ from Questa, NM was asking for a water rights transfer to take place, so that El Valle could essentially 'retire' the surface right as they offset their pumping. They had not entered into a contract yet, but had at l...

Yet another surface water transfer along an acequia is up for a decision by the ditch's commissioners. This time, it's in the Taos area - the Pacheco ditch. The hearing is set for 5 p.m. at the Juan I. Gonzales Taos County Agricultural Center, 202 Chamisa Road, which lies on the south side of Taos. The notice is posted here , as a .pdf, for the public hearing ( TVAA link). I've written about a few of these applications, notably the Chupadero case and the Cook case (Espanola), and so far it's been a challenge for transfer applicants to get approval by acequia commissioners. These new transfer by-law measures, if they have been adopted by ditch commissioners and parciantes, offer an added measure of protection from water transfers that do not fall under the purview of the OSE. Applicants must plead their case to the commission, and the burden of proof is on them to document that the transfer would not harm the other irrigators on the ditch. Of course, the commissione...

There's an interesting piece in today's Albuquerque Journal, by John Fleck , on the life and (eventual) death of dams - this one happens to be about Elephant Butte in southern New Mexico. The challenge for EB is keeping the Rio Grande channelized enough so that water eventually reaches the actual reservoir, instead of spreading out in a typical distributary delta like so many others that occur around the world, when a river meets ultimate base level (the sea). Here, it's the constant battle between slope, sediment supply, and the currents of the river that dictate where the river struggles to make it to the dead pool of the dam. And unlike the Nile or the Mississippi deltas that are slowly disappearing, this inland Rio Grande near-delta actually re-forms every year. Given the amount of sediment thrown from semi-arid mountain landforms, it's no surprise that flood and sediment control are a major concern. Throw in impervious cover, and you speed up the work that wa...

I have admittedly spent most of my time this past year focused on water quantity , water rights , acequias , and adjudication . And, right or wrong, I have said little about actual water quality . A convergence of interesting quotes, newspapers stories, local activist influences, and a future course plan are making me reconsider how water quality is pertinent not only to this blog but to all New Mexicans. Many of you know of the Buckman Diversion Project just northwest of Santa Fe, essentially a filtering bladder dam that parallels the channel of the Rio Grande, and that will allow up to some 5000 afy to be drawn for the city and county water supply once it comes on-line in 2011. This “new” wet water (love the redundancy of this term) is actually not new, however, in that the Buckman project is supposed to be a renewable water source for a non-renewable one – in essence, to replace the Buckman pumping field currently slurping into the nearby aquifer. I was recently quoted , in som...

My latest poll (to the right) is a simple enough question: Should this blog die as I exit New Mexico at the end of February? Should I keep it going? Do I need more New Mexico focus? Is the comparative posting at all useful to people? Just thoughts on this Super Bowl Sunday -- oh, and Go Saints! Who dat bloggin' on water?!

OK - somewhat disappointing that only n=6 on the poll that just closed; on "what is the most immediate threat" to acequias, people were evently split on three of the four choices, and the only category that didn't get a single nod was bureaucracy. Water transfers, delinquent parciantes, and urban water demands were balanced in terms of any perception of imminent threat. And these are scaled aspects, one is internal (parciantes), one is slightly less local (transfer), while the last category of urban water is clearly exogenous - an external threat. Obviously, savvy readers can easily tie together the fact that many current or soon-to-be transfer applications are driven by urban water demands , and an ever-increasing demographic pressure on utilities to service those new demands. Witness population growth in the metro Santa Fe area (graph, from SFe Review). And this "urban" demand is usually, sometimes casually disguised as "suburban" demand. Adobe desi...

Much has been made in New Mexico about the changes to water resource management since the statutes authorizing the OSE to pursue " active water resource management " were passed a few years ago. Depending on the basin, it's either been slightly controversial, or highly confrontational (according to people living in some of those basins). This is a brief post to ask out loud, rhetorically, what are the alternatives to "active" management? How could the "active" bit of management be better "integrated" into the local scheme of water resource management plans? Here comes my advertising for a new on-line and better yet, FREE journal, Water Alternatives , and the current issue explores the various routes towards managing water in some integrated ways, with ideas from cases and areas around the world. It's worth a look, honest. The last issue was on hydraulic bureaucracies , something I touched on in one of my latest posts , and also worth ...