Rural Matters 2012 Issue 3 - Guest editorial: Managing our finite water resources

A New Mexico resident who works with supplying water reflects on the past and future of water use and suggests ways to create sustainable water systems in rural areas

By Ramón Lucero Jr.

Hot. Dry.

We can already put the summer of 2012 down in the record books for those two reasons.

July was the hottest month in the lower 48 states in records going back 117 years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in early August. The 12 months ending in July were the hottest ever in the continental U.S. The average temperature was 77.6 degrees—3.3 degrees above normal.

As the summer wore on, the government declared that nearly two-thirds of the country was under drought conditions. The drought hit the lower Midwest hardest.

The majority of New Mexico, where I live, suffered under severe or extreme drought conditions this summer. This is a continuation of dry conditions from early 2011. The drought’s impacts have accumulated in many areas and economic sectors.

The widespread drought is causing many Americans to take a serious look at water use, from farmers who need to irrigate vast tracts of land to individual homeowners who turn on their showers and get nothing.

My passion for managing our finite water resources comes from the lackadaisical approach most of us have toward them. I have witnessed or participated first-hand in replacing the antiquated water infrastructure in more than 50 traditional Hispanic communities in northern New Mexico.

My mother, who was born in northern New Mexico, carried water for all of her family’s needs, like the women of many Latin American and African countries. The arduous work of supplying water has resulted in a culture that has come to understand what the sanctity and utilization of water means for survival.

What will it take for the rest of us to appreciate that water is a finite natural resource?

The implications of drought in New Mexico

Here is some of what drought conditions have triggered since last year:

Even dry winter wheat crops have fared poorly.
Irrigated agriculture can fare better, but scant rain and low stream flows require more groundwater pumping.
Farmers start irrigating fields earlier in the year than usual.
Due to low water allocations in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, many farmers are pondering growing cotton, which requires less water than other crops grown in the region and which has a high market price. The losses incurred by extra groundwater pumping may be offset by additional revenue generated by high cotton prices.
Farmers who cultivate less flexible crops such as pecans grown in the Middle Rio Grande have to pump large quantities of groundwater and endure higher operating costs.
In Otero County, some ranchers are spending $1,000 per month in feed for livestock to supplement poor pastures.
Last year, six miles south of Las Vegas, N.M., approximately 70 water-supply wells went dry within the service area of El Creston Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association (MDWCA). El Creston MDWCA began purchasing water from the city of Las Vegas and providing water-transport services to its members at a cost of $110 per 1,600 gallons or approximately $.069 per gallon. This continues today. Just 30 miles to the south, water associations were selling water to their customers at a cost of only $9.60 per 1,600 gallons. According to local real estate agents, property values within El Creston’s service area plummeted between 75 and 90 percent.

History of rural water associations

The current drought is the worst on record since the Spaniards made their way up El Camino Real to a place near present-day San Gabriel, just north of Española, N.M. Prior to establishing centralized water systems in northern New Mexico, the people in the isolated traditional northern communities of New Mexico obtained their water from the rivers or acequias (irrigation canals), which have survived for more than 400 years to the present day.

Centralized water was brought to the small northern communities in the 1950 and 1960s. The state passed legislation leading to the Sanitary Projects Act and the organization of mutual domestic water consumer associations (MDWCA). Construction was funded through grants from the state health department with community members providing the labor for trenching and installation of waterlines.

While the state funded the new water infrastructure, it did not provide basic managerial and technical training to the volunteers left in charge of operating and managing the newly formed water associations. Although the volunteers provided safe drinking water for the following 50 to 60 years, many of the water associations failed to stay in compliance with state and federal regulations. Water associations were often lacking a certified operator, failed to file their annual corporate report with the Public Regulation Commission, and missed paying their gross receipts tax to the taxation and revenue department.

As infrastructure aged and was not attended to, it started giving water associations problems. For the first 15 years, many communities’ monthly water rates were between $1 and $5. As a result, they had no financial resources to repair or replace their leaking water tanks and waterlines.

Fortunately, while the state operated a surplus budget, funding became available through capital outlays in the form of legislative grants, grant/loan packages split 75/25 percent from USDA Rural Development, and eventually funding in the form of grants, and later grant/loan packages from the Water Trust Board.

Capacity development

Over the past ten years, MDWCAs in New Mexico have made great strides in capacity development. This has been largely due to technical assistance providers like the Rural Community Assistance Corporation, the Western RCAP, and the Capacity Development Program of the New Mexico Environment Department’s Drinking Water Bureau. Technical assistance providers have helped MDWCAs update their bylaws, rules and regulations, create budgets and financial plans, and, as a result, establish adequate water rates. In the majority of cases, MDWCAs now employ certified operators and bookkeepers and, for the most part, are maintaining their compliance with state and federal regulations.

However, a weak economy, limited financial resources, a competitive funding market, additional state and federal regulations, an ever-increasing demand for water rights, and a changeable and unpredictable climate make it increasingly challenging for board members of MDWCAs to adequately operate, manage and provide their customers with that precious finite natural resource: water.

This situation begs us to create sound financial, technical and managerial practices to ensure that our water supply is safeguarded the next seven generations, which is the outlook of our Native American brothers and sisters. We must pull ourselves out of the “hydro-illogical-cycle: drought, concern, rain, apathy, drought, concern, rain, apathy…” as described by Paul Hawken in his book, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. We must embrace the concept that former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway defined when addressing the United Nations on sustainability: “to meet the needs of our present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

Implementing these concepts and practices provides us with the ability to predict that the consequences of our actions, when our actions are considered wisely, would provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people, everyone considered.

Formation of regional rural water associations

If we can get past local politics and manage water on the watershed level versus individual communities, regional water associations can provide an opportunity for long-term sustainability. Over the past five years, the following regional rural water associations have begun to take hold in New Mexico:

El Rito Regional Water & Wastewater Association, Rio Arriba County
Cuatro Villas MDWUA, Santa Fe County
La Jicarita Watershed and Wastewater Committee, Taos County
Mora-El Alto-Del Rio MDWCA, Mora County
Sangre de Cristo Regional, Guadalupe County
Lower Rio Grande Regional, Doña Ana County
El Valle Water Alliance, San Miguel County

While each association was formed under its own distinct organizational structure, the intent of their regional organization was similar–long-term sustainability through sound business practices. Each association has some of these common fundamental goals:

Develop a management team of paid professionals to promote and maintain sound business practices of a regional water and wastewater utility in order to maintain appropriate funds for financial self-sufficiency.
Maintain compliance with reporting requirements of local, state and federal drinking water regulations.
Maintain efficient water and wastewater systems that promote long-term protection of a regional aquifer and safe drinking water for future generations.
Protection of regional assets, memberships, water rights, service area, infrastructure and water.
Leverage local, state and federal funding with the goal of keeping water rates affordable to customers.
Inform the general population on the ever-changing water conditions, quantity, quality, utilization, consequences, etc.

Water management at the state level in the Southwest

As regional rural water associations are developing their organizational preparedness to deal with severe drought conditions and limited water supplies, there needs to be a higher level of water-resource management at the state level. Although the state has many regulatory bodies that promulgate rules related to water, the state of New Mexico lacks a water-resource management group that is proactively working toward sustainable solutions to meet everyone’s needs.

The three states bordering New Mexico are currently in the process of implementing strategies that will help them proactively manage their water into the future. Examples:

Texas: state and regional water-planning rules, 16 delineated regional planning areas, and individuals from interest groups serving as members of regional water planning groups to prepare plans for their respective areas. These groups must provide for public input in the planning process, hold public meetings and furnish a draft report of the plan for public review and comment.
Colorado: formation of the Colorado Decision Support Systems to assist in making informed decisions regarding future use of water.
Arizona: creation of the Water Resources Development Commission to assess the current and future water needs of the state. The legislature tasked the Director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources to appoint a Water Resources Development commission whose members must possess knowledge about various water-resource and water-management issues in Arizona and represent a regional and geographic cross-section of the state.

More is needed in New Mexico

While New Mexico has completed and adopted regional water plans and a state water plan, they were completed without the benefit of full adjudication of the state’s water resources or comprehensive hydro-geologic investigations.

In recent years, the majority of state water policies and projects have been in response to current needs, such as antiquated infrastructure or planning that occurred between 40 and 100 years ago. While many of these projects are important in helping to manage the state’s water resources, they are only helping to address current instead of future water-management needs.

The Water and Natural Resource Legislative Committee, the Interstate Stream Commission, the Water Trust Board, the New Mexico Environment Department, the New Mexico Acequia Association and others perform an important function in water-resource management, but their role is not holistic.

Similar to some of the recent activities of our neighboring states, New Mexico must establish a group of water-resource management experts along with other stakeholders who equally represent the interests of every resident of the state—rural and urban, agriculture and domestic, and economic and cultural.

Although this group would have many goals, tasks and policies, it can begin by examining if the state’s current water laws, policies and ordinances still represent our current and future needs. We currently have water-rights laws that make it nearly impossible to complete adjudication. Should we retain these laws if they no longer serve our current and future needs, or do we modify and develop new water-rights laws that assure that out future needs for water are going to be met?

In order to adequately plan how to meet our future water needs, we must convert our management practices from a reactive to a proactive approach. While the financial resources needed to complete this work may be great, we must consider how great the cost would be if we began to run out of water, as we currently are, without a plan.

Lucero lives and works near Santa Fe, N.M. He is a project manager for Souder, Miller and Associates, a civil and environmental firm with expertise in helping rural communities secure funding, design water-system improvement projects and managing construction projects. He is also the president of El Valle Water Alliance, a consortium of nine rural water associations along the Upper Pecos River Watershed.

Other articles in this issue: