Cocoposts

Pipe Dreams - New Mexico Water Transfers at the Roundhouse

Supporters say HB19 just clarifies how leasing water constitutes a ‘beneficial use.’ Water owner at point A leases a groundwater right to someone at point B. The water can’t be used at point B so instead of forfeiture (which the SEO said they never do) or reversion (which might happen after four years) the water can be leased again for use at point C. None of this is actual water until a thirsty city, or whatever entity can afford to, buys and builds water infrastructure to use the rights.

Cautious reading says that C could be anywhere - allowing lease holder at B to “shop” the use - or speculate. (Say it ain’t so.) It also may leave the owner A without much of a say in the matter, which could be why there is still some opposition from cattle and wool growers.

Like HB181, SB309 deals with water leasing for streamflow and wildlife which sounds so nice. Because of broad definitions and the absence of criteria it is at least conceivable this wildlife water could be used throughout that steam system for any beneficial use. So water leased for fish could be leased again for compact deliveries downstream. Is that wrong? Well it’s innovative and it isn’t just about the fish.

Moving Water Uphill to Money

Cross-posted en El Grito

New Mexico’s farmers, ranchers and housing subdividers have probably been the first to understand what’s at stake with water.  They have skin in the game. They’re represented at the Roundhouse. So are the water speculators, those brave ‘visionaries’ inside the water sale, lease and transfer game.

Water transfers are considered a solution to water supply and demand challenges. Bills at the Legislature this session strongly support such a view. Whether you agree with the approach or not, there are interesting implications. For one thing, transferring paper water around by selling and leasing water rights to thirsty desperate entities has grown very profitable. But building pipelines, pumps, canals, and dams to actually move wet water is  a very expensive public cost.

Senator Cervantes has introduced SB440 to provide funding for lower Rio Grande water purchases, among other things. It begs the question of where the water would come from.  Coincidentally, I’m so sure, there are a couple of pipeline projects in the Capital Outlay List:

SOUTHERN NM WATER PIPELINE GILA-SAN FRANCISCO 25,000,000 to plan, design and construct a water conveyance pipeline from the Gila-San Francisco water basin to the Las Cruces metropolitan area…

SOUTHERN NM WATER PIPELINE SALT/TULAROSA/CARLSBAD 75,000,000 to plan, design and construct a water conveyance pipeline from the Salt, Tularosa, Carlsbad and other water basins in Dona Ana, Otero and Eddy counties.

The Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) has done a lot planning involving a lot of people with interest in the future of the Gila River.  A pipeline was not part of that planning.  Is the Office of the State Engineer and the ISC ignoring the extensive and expensive process they established to spend money and use this water? Is the Legislature?

The Watchdog’s coverage of SB440 noted the Office of the State Engineer and ISC statement: “As more time passes, and water problems increase in magnitude statewide, existing regional water plans are outdated and useless in addressing emerging water crises.” So updating the plans instead of ignoring them should be a top priority. Or you might think so.

SB13, another Cervantes bill, would give $400,000 to the ISC for planning in the lower Rio Grande. Nice and timely for any transferring but it doesn’t appear to fit with a coordinated process to update all 16 regional plans. The Legislature hasn’t funded water planning in five years. But that hasn’t slowed infrastructure project requests – requests that are supposed to be prioritized through water plans – begging the question of how priorities are being set now.

Details, details.

The State Engineer has the sole power to make transfer decisions and he is supposed to take  ‘public welfare’ into account. That’s a sticky wicket since the stalled water planning process was intended to define what that means, along with how much water there might be to transfer in the first place. The State Engineer said water administration involves ‘multiple cans of worms.’ Better go fishing soon while the river is still there.

Dry and Desperate - New Mexico Drought

Cross posted in El Grito

It’s bad and we’re all lawyered up.

That’s a good tweet-length description of the State Engineer’s information about water given to a joint hearing of Senate Conservation, Judiciary and Finance committees on January 24th. The hearing was sparsely attended but Conservation Chair, Senator Wirth assured the larger audience in the gallery that many Senators were listening in their offices. (Sure they were.) State Engineer, Scott Verhines and the Director of the Interstate Stream Commission, Estevan Lopez, described the offices and function before Conservation Bureau Director, John Longworth presented sobering drought statistics. It was dry, but not nearly as dry as  New Mexico.

Water is the most important issue we talk the least about. Senator Peter Wirth

New Mexico water law is unique and the complexities are great and growing. Scarcity, not surprisingly, is increasing costs and conflict. The Engineer estimated the value of water rights in New Mexico at $15-16 billion dollars.  Later, Senator John Smith quipped that the only thing we have less of in New Mexico than water is money. As for conflict, it’s epic. The attorney noted only some of the multiple lawsuits in federal and state court. Litigation issues are scheduled to will be presented again to the Senate Finance Committee on January 31st at 1:30, Room 322. It’ll be interesting to see just how much all that water lawyering costs.

Drought got the most focus. John Longsworth presented tragic temperature, precipitation and reservoir data. Over 95% of our state is in moderate to extreme drought. Reservoirs are very low with Elephant Butte at 7% capacity. 2012 temperatures were the warmest in 118 years and the last 24 months are the driest in 120 years. Senator Phil Griego later described the crisis in southern New Mexico saying that more than 13,000 acres of farmland on the Pecos River have been abandoned and that people are so desperate some are stealing hay.

Wet years have a way of covering up a multitude of water management sins. Drought exposes them for all to see. John Fleck, ABQ Journal 

Among the consequences of drought to Verhine’s Office are even more litigation and more complicated administrative decisions. He lauded his staff’s intelligence and work ethic saying they carefully consider long term  and unintended consequences of applications. That’s good, because there are deep consequences to the trend of transferring water to the highest bidders. Pressures on the State Engineer for favorable rulings are unlikely to abate, even if the drought does, and there is no end in sight to lawsuits.

Speaking of which, the San Augustin Ranch LLC proposal for a water transfer from Catron County to the Rio Grande was mentioned. A court had upheld the Engineer’s initial denial of the permit but that decision was just appealed.  The case entailed the largest administrative hearing ever conducted by any State Engineer with 900 protests to the transfer. It is not going away.

Solve, not fight

That’s the State Engineer’s mantra, he said. Toward the close of the hearing Senator Wirth suggested that might be a good goal for Legislature.

Water Planning: Rinse and Repeat

'A water right is a hunting license not a warranty deed.

Overheard at the 19th Annual New Mexico Water Dialogue Thursday, January 10, 2013

The official title was 'Reviving Water Planning: Successes, Challenges and Opportunities' but I prefer mine. One overwhelming point that stuck with me from the day: hard choices are going to need to be made about water. And those choices can be made more equitably through water planning - a collaborative effort involving varied interests.

There were a couple of elephants in the already well-populated room at the Pueblo Cultural Center. One was called-out by an attendee - the  City, more accurately but irritatingly, the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, to whom we are to be eternally grateful for not having included 'wastewater' in their name. The 'they' there is actually nobody but well-paid staff and a fluid mix of representatives from the member governments. It's a structure, I believe, designed to distance it's member board from accountability and its actions from public transparency. The elephantine status comes from being the biggest water user in the State.

Water Happy-Talk

"A rainy winter in the Southwest has bought time for Las Vegas. According to The Arizona Republic, water levels in Lake Mead are up five feet, forestalling water rationing … until 2015, anyway. Last fall, Lake Mead’s surface had fallen to seven feet above the point where emergency measures would have to be instituted.

Don’t let the happy-talk local papers fool you: Lake Mead is still at least 125 feet below its 1999 level, an alarming 40% of capacity. Of course, to the hear the most powerful person in the Silver State — Southern Nevada Water Authority führer Pat Mulroy — tell it, we don’t need no stinking rationing … just more giant pipelines to suck other people’s aquifers dry."

From Stiffs and Goerges, a Las Vegas blog.

Pipe Politics

Concerns that new Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval's reorganization of the State's Agricultural Department is motivated by ag board opposition to the proposed water pipeline seem not too far-fetched.  (More from the Great Basin Water Network.)

Patricia Mulroy, Water Empress, the Southern Nevada Water Authority's chief executive,  and very very pro-pipe and pro-pipe growth, is on the Gov's transition team. 

Ag board members and others probably oppose it because without water there is no agriculture, or much life at all in the Great Basin for that matter.  But I'm just guessing here.

Buckman Water Why Worry

Santa Fe's new drinking water supply source come January, like it or not, is downstream of nasties but some folks say don't worry.  You'll be dead before it matters.  Basically.  From the Santa Fe New Mexican: 

The Buckman diversion point is 3.3 miles below a spot where a canyon once used as a Los Alamos National Laboratory waste dump empties into the Rio Grande. A recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report identified 40 "high-priority" dump sites in Los Alamos and Pueblo canyons that can discharge contaminants into the Rio Grande during floods.

On Nov. 1, LANL received a storm-water discharge permit from the state Environment Department to continue letting water flow across dozens of lab waste sites and through canyons to the Rio Grande.

In addition, the Buckman river diversion point is downstream from a Superfund site in Española.

But don't worry.  We got a guy who is gonna sit at the switch and turn it off when it rains. 

A key and unique feature of the river-diversion project is an early-warning system that will allow the operators to shut off flows from the river during storm-water and flood events.

That certainly is a "key" and "unique" feature.  I'm glad they didn't say innovative. 

Las Vegas to lose population says Nevada's State demographer.  Some 70,000 residents this year. 

So they won't need that big water pipeline from northern Nevada if Vegas loses population, right?  Right?  :crickets:

Buckman Diversion Water at First Gulp

Contaminants in Santa Fe's future drinking water are not above "safe" levels.  So there.  But that's not cause for a sigh of relief  say those who believe the sampling is too limited or flawed.   Staci Matlock writes in The Santa Fe New Mexican:

The Environment Department has collected water samples from Los Alamos Canyon to the Buckman Direct Diversion site for three years, but the sampling hasn't gone well.  Either the state has missed the high water flows out of Los Alamos Canyon or there haven't been any. "Los Alamos Canyon is the primary discharge point for the majority of Los Alamos waste that might carry plutonium and other radioactive waste," Ford-Schmid said. "So we don't have concrete evidence to contradict what they say in the report."

EPA found 60 high-priority sites that need to be cleaned up but don't hold your breath.  Or swallow, for that matter.

Perfect Deniability for Sprawl

Albuquerque Journal coverage of the new Albuquerque City Council President deliberations includes Councillor Harris's little aside about the Water Authority. 

One key decision for a council president is agreeing on appointments to the board of the Water Utility Authority, which is overseen by three city councilors, three county commissioners and the mayor.  Harris said he would support appointees who understand the need for water conservation but that "it would be very important to me that the water board shouldn't be making land-use policy."

That's the developers' job. 

This isn't some little side of beans and rice.  It is the whole enchilada -  our water management future.  Or rather, why we don't have one.   I contend, like a skipping cd, this was intentional.  The idea behind creating the Water Authority was to green light land use decisions and free those that make them from pesky concerns and limitations posed by water policy or any potential future water policy.  Land use worries are severed from water worries, so no worries!

Management and meager planning efforts are now divided statutorily.  Separate policies of separate agencies apply to falsely separated aspects of inherently related features - land and water.  Water is not in the Council's perview, and land use is not in the Authority's perview.  So anything having to do with both of them, which is a whole lot, is screwed unmanageable.

Presto: An inability to manage growth in anyway.  The perfect deniability for sprawl.