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Last Updated: March 15, 2008 - 3:24 PM
Cover illustration by Jon Krause; cover design by Angela Moore. |
New Mexico’s water future is here—and there’s not a drop to spare.
On a warm Sunday in mid-March, Steve Harris looks out at the Rio Grande, which is running three times higher than it did all last year, he says. The river’s vivacity prompts Harris to think long and hard about the future: The region’s climate is expected to warm, which will cause snowpack to melt ever earlier. It’s past time, he says, to reconsider how the river is managed.
“We need to get on a sustainable footing as a society and not expect more out of the river than it’s able to deliver,” Harris, a raft guide in Pilar who also runs the nonprofit Rio Grande Restoration, says.
But if the state’s cities and suburbs continue to grow without restraint—demanding all the more water each year—the state is in for trouble, Harris and others believe. Long-term effects will include economic hardship for the state, a lowered quality of life for residents, reduced biological diversity and, without irrigable land left along the rivers, a lack of food security. “We have to confront this,” Harris says, “because no matter what anyone thinks, by deferring a decision, you’re making a decision.”
The clock is definitely ticking.
Just a month earlier, in February, the National Academies released a report focusing on the Colorado River, which supplies water to seven states, including New Mexico.
Based on studies of the past, the report’s authors show that extended drought is a reality for the region; temperatures will continue to rise in the foreseeable future, and urban demands for water are making it more difficult for the region to deal with drought and water shortages.
And while everyone knows that the Southwest’s cities have spread and expanded over the past century, a look at US Census numbers still has the power to shock: In 1920, the population of New Mexico was 360,350; in 1960, it was still less than 1 million. Today’s population tops out at more than 1.9 million, with most people living along the Rio Grande in cities such as Santa Fe, Rio Rancho, Albuquerque and Las Cruces. (Growth in neighboring states such as Arizona has been even more dramatic: In 1920, the population was 334,162. Today, almost 6 million people call Arizona home.)
All this growth occurred during a time that was relatively wet for the region, according to David Gutzler, a climatologist with the University of New Mexico. “What we know from the climate record is that we have created an infrastructure for water that is based on what people have experienced in the 20th century,” he says.
The Colorado River, for example, was divvied up in 1922, a time scientists now understand was unusually wet. “There is a moral there for water resource managers,” Gutzler says. “I can suggest, as a scientist, that we think very carefully about the water future we’re heading to, [since] those droughts are what we really need to worry
David Gutzler, a UNM climatologist, believes water policy should take drought into account. (File photo.) |
about in terms of water policy.”
But there has already been plenty of thinking—and hand wringing—about New Mexico’s water future.
Federal, state and municipal agencies have studied everything from how river systems and aquifers are connected to how much water tree roots suck from the soil. Private companies have been paid millions of dollars to study “hydrologic effects” on water transfers and regional water supplies under different conditions. During his tenure as governor, Bill Richardson has formed climate change, water and drought task forces, and even declared 2007 the Year of Water.
Nonetheless, when the Legislature recently adjourned, only seven out of some 130 bills related to water had been passed, and most water projects were funded at levels far below the requests by Richardson and the State Engineer’s Office, the agency responsible for water management in the state.
Which says, to many, that there is a lack of will, both politically and among residents, to truly face New Mexico’s water future.
“People have to understand there is a finite amount of water within this state, and people have to live within their means,” Thomas Turney, a former New Mexico state engineer, says. “Not everybody can have all the water they want.”
And this means big changes for a state that has spent the last century supplying water to everyone who demanded it.
More than 50 years ago, knowing that the waters of the Rio Grande were fully appropriated—that is, all the water in the river legally belonged to someone—the State Engineer’s Office began to allow groundwater pumping. Cities such as Albuquerque and
Higher temperatures mean more water will evaporate off reservoirs, irrigated fields and even snow fields. Peak spring snowmelt will occur earlier, often preceding irrigation season, and place a higher demand on water suppliers during the summer. Also, while water supplies are likely to decrease, the growing season will lengthen. |
Santa Fe and, later, Rio Rancho, continued to grow by tapping into the aquifers below. All the while, water was still being siphoned out of the river by irrigators and other users.
Water managers were fully aware that the good times wouldn’t last, according to G Emlen Hall, a law professor at the University of New Mexico. Before he went to UNM, Hall worked under New Mexico’s uber state engineer, Steve Reynolds, who reigned over water matters in the state for 35 years. In 1956, Reynolds knew that surface and underground water supplies were interconnected in the Middle Rio Grande, yet still allowed them both to be developed—with the understanding that once groundwater pumping began to affect the levels in the river, pumping would cease and cities would have to buy rights off the river from, say, irrigators. Water managers knew, Hall says, that the system wouldn’t be sustainable for more than 50 years.
“They knew in 1956 that in 50 years, they were going to have to return to the 1956 set of depletions on the river, but they assumed the surface water irrigation would be reduced virtually to zero. That, of course, didn’t happen.”
Essentially, 50 years of urban growth occurred without any thought to the long-term effects on the river. Reynolds was right, Hall says, that development could occur for 50 years: “And now the time is up. In the 1950s, they set a policy loose, and knew it was going to come to an end right
As reported by the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, most of the water used in the state goes toward agricultural purposes. (Image courtesy New Mexico OSE.) |
about now.”
Today, not only does no one know where the replacement water rights are going to come from, no one knows how many of these promises to obtain surface water rights are even out there.
But in order to understand New Mexico’s waters—and the potential for future shortages—it’s helpful to understand the system under which they operate.
The grossly simplified version goes something like this: Water rights are based on a priority system that, at least theoretically, means that those with the oldest rights are served first during times of scarcity. Typically, those older rights belong to irrigators, while cities have junior rights.
Within the state, surface water from rivers and groundwater pumped from aquifers are managed in slightly different ways, though the two systems are linked. For example, in the Rio Grande Valley, when wells pump too much groundwater, water is pulled from the river. And when the river runs dry—as it has below Albuquerque most
An acre-foot is the volume of water it takes to cover 1 acre of land to a depth of 1 foot. It’s equivalent to 325,851 gallons. |
summers since the 1990s—it can no longer help replenish the aquifer.
In addition, the state shares eight stream basins with other states. The two most important basins in New Mexico are the Rio Grande and the Pecos River, and the state must legally share a certain amount of their waters with Texas. There’s no skimping on those deliveries, by the way, and if New Mexico can’t deliver the water, it has to deliver money—lots of it.
And there’s cause for concern over the compacts, particularly on the Rio Grande where, according to a 2004 study, the water supply is, on average, insufficient to meet demand. To balance supply and demand, either supplies must be increased, or demand decreased by between 71,000 and 110,600 acre-feet. As it is now, the presence of pumped groundwater in the river is carrying the system and ensuring compliance.
Former State Engineer Thomas Turney learned the hard way that New Mexico cities won’t be denied their water. (File photo.) |
Confused yet? Good, join the crowd. Because there are also a lot of things nobody knows about New Mexico’s water. These include how many wells there are in the state, how much water they pump and how much water is drawn from the state’s rivers. Also unknown is how much water each of the Indian tribes along the Rio Grande are entitled to—particularly important since the pueblos’ water rights are older than anyone else’s.
Hall adds that in addition to the question of legal rights, there’s also the question of where the water will come from to do all the planned restoration and wetlands projects. All in all, he says, it’s unknown how much water there is to “cover current demand—let alone future demand.”
But perhaps the biggest problem facing the state is adjudication. Simply stated, when adjudicating river waters, the State Engineer figures out exactly who has rights on a river. It’s a long and expensive process that involves the courts and extensive studies. But in the event of water scarcity, if rivers aren’t adjudicated—and approximately 80 percent of the state’s rivers are not—the state can’t know who should receive water and who should be cut off.
The major sticking point in New Mexico, however, is that cities come last in line for water. And what fool would stand between cities and their water—even if in defense of the state’s constitution?
Former State Engineer Thomas Turney thought about trying just that in 2001: When New Mexico was short in its Pecos River deliveries to Texas, Turney talked of cutting water to junior water rights holders along the river. Chaos ensued and people freaked out—Turney even needed State Police officers to escort him to meetings in the Pecos Valley.
The state Legislature ended up funding a plan to buy water from users to meet deliveries to Texas. The state also pumped groundwater into the river and is still working to purchase farmland,
The Rio Grande flowing through White Rock Canyon, northwest of Santa Fe. (Photo by Amy Stephan.) |
then retire its water rights in order to keep more water in the river. In all, the state has already spent more than $300 million since 2001 to ensure deliveries of 10,000 acre-feet to Texas on the Pecos. The problems there, Turney says, were relatively minor compared with what could happen on the Rio Grande, if the river’s flows were not supplemented by groundwater pumping. The annual deficit to Texas could be 10 times that amount.
Managing the state’s waters is “extraordinarily difficult no matter what you do,” Turney says. “Everyone wants the maximum amount of water with the earliest priority. Everyone is willing to study, to come to the table to talk about planning, but once you to try to figure out where you’re going to get the water, everyone says, ‘Don’t take it from me.’”
The water manager in the hot seat these days is John D’Antonio. Born and raised in New Mexico, he understands the region, and even some of his biggest critics are quick to point out that he’s intelligent and a “good guy.” Not only that, he’s one of the few high-level state officials a reporter can interview these days without a public
Out of some 130 bills related to water introduced to the Legislature during Gov. Richardson’s Year of Water, seven passed this session, including SB 886, funding infrastructure for the strategic water reserve, and SB 461, which allows agricultural water users who conserve water to apply to the State Engineer’s Office for savings credits. |
affairs officer leaning over his shoulder, steering the conversation.
Under D’Antonio, the state has developed its first water plan and is engaged in “active resources management”—part of that, he says, involves requiring measuring devices, metering surface and groundwater use, hiring water masters and putting together rules and regulations that address issues such as water transfers and previously unregulated domestic well permits. Last summer, the agency also released a report titled “The Impact of Climate Change on New Mexico’s Water Supply and Ability to Manage Water Resources.”
D’Antonio acknowledges that the studies concerning the region’s long-term drought are “pretty scary,” but he’s confident that the state’s active resource management plan is effective. “We’re always dealing with the variability of supply, and the best we can do is what we’re doing right now,” he says. “We can measure and manage a resource that’s going to be variable from year to year.”
And the state also can figure out ways to adapt to changes in climate, he says. For example, scientists predict that the majority of the region’s precipitation will come in the form of summertime storms, rather than wintertime snowpack. So let’s look at things differently, he says. “Let’s look at how do we take peaks off big storms and store that water underground? Also, instead of using groundwater and
State Engineer John D’Antonio is looking at better ways to manage water as the climate continues to change. (File photo.) |
surface water supplies [during those times], if we know it’s sustainable, let’s put that in storage and use the rains as they fall.”
What seems to worry D’Antonio more than climate change is the fact that so many people in the state seem threatened by water management. “I want to get people to understand what we’re trying to do, get people to understand that enforcement is good, accountability is good, that free-for-all in our water use is bad,” he says.
But in and of itself, the Office of the State Engineer seems to wield little power: Until last year, a domestic well permit cost only $5 (today, it costs $125). And even when the state knows that water users are diverting more water than they should, there’s no real way to enforce cuts or prevent illegal diversions. And the burden to stop “double dipping” seems to lie with local governments rather than the State Engineer’s Office. For example, when D’Antonio’s office approves the transfer of water from a farmer to a development, the county can then approve a subdivision that will sink domestic wells on the land.
Another issue, D’Antonio says, lies with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District
Water projects that received the highest amount of funding during the 2007 Legislature include: a water pipeline on the Navajo Reservation ($5 million); a water pipeline from Ute Reservoir to the eastern part of the state ($1 million); development toward a desalination plant in southern New Mexico ($1 million); repairs to acequias statewide ($1 million); and installation of water metering devices in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District ($1 million). |
(MRGCD), the organization that supplies water to irrigators between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte. It’s considered double dipping when the district offers to buy senior water rights from users, then still supplies them with water from the system after the actual rights have been sold. There are countless examples of this double—and even triple—dipping into the state’s water system. But no one entity has the power—or budget—to address the problems.
With respect to adjudication, D’Antonio acknowledges it is a problem, though he points out that his staff is actively working on 14 cases across the state—“that’s 65,000 defendants, 18 pueblos and tribal entities,” he says. “It’s a whole lot of work.”
Plus, this year the Legislature changed the nature of the adjudication project’s funding and tied it to severance taxes, which are subject to price fluctuations.
Ideas for finding more water that are frequently mentioned include pumping brackish groundwater, then making it potable through processes such as desalination, and even “cloud seeding” to try to coax rain from stubborn clouds. |
Tying the litigation fund to severance taxes, D’Antonio says, “puts us in a little bit of jeopardy—if the revenue goes down, it will make it difficult for us to continue, and we’re already spread thin around the state.”
Which means that the political will to really address New Mexico’s water issues remains fuzzy. “The governor declared it the Year of Water, but when it’s all said and done, there was a lot of capital outlay money that was supposed to go to water that didn’t,” he says. “The Legislature essentially replaced our severance bond money with severance tax money. The Legislature took money out of our litigation fund. So there’s not much political will there.”
Political will or not, the growth and, thus, the water demands, continues.
As cities continue to burgeon and new subdivisions sprawl onto previously undeveloped lands, they are looking for still more water. Transfers of water from agricultural to urban use, which already occur with some regularity, are likely to increase in the
Well booster stations, such as this Buckman one near the Rio Grande, are used to increase water pressure. (Photo by Larry Kohr.) |
coming years.
But, obviously, not everyone agrees that the answer lies in such transfers. Like many New Mexico farmers, Lisa Robert owns a small parcel of land—and laughs when someone asks how well she lives off her crops. She owns five acres in Tome, a small but growing community south of Albuquerque, and has refused to sell or subdivide her land since her husband died five years ago.
For her, it’s ridiculous to simply write off farmland—to sell its rights and develop it into subdivisions: “By keeping my farm, staying on my land, I believe that the highest and best use of farmland is its potential.” Who knows what use that land might serve in the future, she says. “But in the future, we’ll wish to hell we had it back—and once farmland is gone, you can’t get it back.”
Looking objectively at the numbers, it’s easy to point the finger at agriculture, which uses approximately 75 percent of the state’s water. But for most, the debate over water use is far more complicated than ag versus urban numbers. For example, much of the water cities use is treated, then returned to the river. And while everyone
Hydrologist and water broker William Turner has applied to the State Engineer for a permit to divert from Elephant Butte the 372,982 acre-feet that evaporate off the reservoir each year, then store it underground. Were he allowed to do that—the State Engineer has denied the permit, though Turner is appealing in state court—both Rio Rancho and Albuquerque have already said they would buy the water. |
acknowledges that a great deal of the water used to flood irrigation fields evaporates into the air, at least one study from the US Bureau of Reclamation shows that flooded agricultural fields can help recharge the aquifer below.
And the aquifer needs all the help it can get.
Throughout the past 50 years, cities have grown on the backs of groundwater pumping, and they’re only now coming to terms with depletions of the aquifer—by getting ready to pull more water from the Rio Grande. Both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as well as the MRGCD and smaller cities such as Las Lunas, are looking to take advantage of their rights to what’s called San Juan Chama water.
That water comes to the Rio Grande via tunnels to the Rio Chama from tributaries of the Colorado River. Santa Fe and Albuquerque are in the midst of building diversion projects that will allow them to start using surface waters. (Currently, about 90 percent of Albuquerque’s water comes from underground and about 60 percent of Santa Fe’s does.) That doesn’t mean, however, that they’re going to retire groundwater wells.
So where does that leave the river itself, and the species that depend on it? “The environment is the last person at the table,” Letty Belin says. Belin, a Santa Fe attorney who has filed suit on
behalf of endangered species, including the Rio Grande silvery minnow, for more than a decade, adds: “And people find it incredibly inconvenient that anyone ever raises the issue.”
In 2005, the state established a Strategic Water Reserve, by which water is bought or leased from willing sellers and essentially left in the river system. So far, the state has already acquired water rights on the Pecos River and the Rio Grande and, in both instances, the water was used to provide river flows for endangered fish.
According to Fred Nathan, executive director of Think New Mexico, which advocated for the reserve more than four years ago, the water can be used to stave off a number of emergencies, including compact underdeliveries to Texas, endangered species lawsuits and even cutting off junior water rights holders in the event of low flows. “It serves as a buffer,” he says.
For their part, while city governments have reduced municipal water consumption in the past few decades, that water savings doesn’t show up in the river, Belin says. It’s used to fuel more development, more growth and new businesses.
Things like the reserve, as well as the state’s attempt to crack down on domestic well permits, are all incremental steps in the right direction, Belin says. “In all these areas where we’re making progress with water conservation and efficiency, there is absolutely no mechanism in place other than the Endangered Species Act—which is an important mechanism—to ensure or allow that any of the water savings we do make benefit the waters or the river.”
In other words, the river itself has no rights to its own water.
Frank Titus first saw the Middle Rio Grande Valley when he was 10 years old. It was 1938, and his family was driving from California to Arkansas. He still grins at the memory of cresting Nine Mile Hill and seeing the lights of Albuquerque below.
Since then—and even since he first moved to the city in 1956—those lights have undoubtedly spread. And it’s that sprawl in cities across the Southwest—from Las Vegas to Phoenix and back to Albuquerque, Santa Fe and all the suburbs in between—that
Streamflow forecasts in the Southwest vary greatly from one year to the next. (Image courtesy USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service.) |
threatens to challenge water managers in a way they’ve never been tested before.
For Titus, a hydrogeologist who came of professional age during the region’s 1950s drought, the point to consider is this: Will New Mexico continue to look like New Mexico, or will it someday look like a suburb of Los Angeles?
“People who want to develop municipalities say there are huge amounts of water rights for irrigation compared to water rights needed to supply for people. And that’s true,” he says. “But in my opinion, we do not want to destroy ag in the Rio Grande Valley. It provides a greenbelt right through the center of the state, it’s an environment that gives New Mexico part of its character. I’m just not enthusiastic about letting all these be replaced by municipalities with four houses per acre.”
But, like most everyone else who thinks about water in the state, the problems looming are too big, too complicated. Over coffee on a beautiful spring morning, as the daffodils are beginning to bloom, Titus confesses: “On the way here, I was thinking how I was going to answer your question, and I basically decided that I don’t know what we should do.”
© Copyright 2000-2008 by the Santa Fe Reporter
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