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Water Overuse

Otowi and Narrows Oct 12-Nov 11

What Happened to the Flood? The Middle Rio Grande Ate It!

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October’s Big Storm Helped the River But the Middle Rio Grande Depleted 40% of the Lower Rio Grande’s Share

An intense rainstorm centered on the San Juan River mountain headwaters spilled over into the headwaters of the Rio Grande, sending a surge of mountain runoff into the San Luis Valley. This is the storm that flooded Pagosa Springs. The October 14 Alamosa Citizen story headline on the flood was followed by the reporter’s understanding of routine Colorado water management in the subtitle, “Now it’s time to measure and account for the extra water in management of the Rio Grande Compact.”

The Rio Grande at the Del Norte gage peaked at 7,000 cubic feet per second—a very high flow for autumn. The Colorado Division of Water Resources contemporaneously estimated 20,000 to 25,000 acre-feet entered the San Luis Valley in Colorado, and reported that 15,000 acre-feet was diverted into the Valley’s canals. Colorado’s Rio Grande Division Engineer, Pat McDermott, told the Rio Grande Basin Roundtable that the Middle Rio Grande might see roughly 5,000 acre-feet of this water, but that it would likely not extend as far south as Elephant Butte Reservoir. The Rio Grande benefit in New Mexico actually was much larger but he was right about Elephant Butte.

Because the Rio Grande Compact divides the river’s flow among Colorado, the upper, middle and lower Rio Grande in New Mexico, and the Lower Rio Grande in Texas, how each state measures and manages water determines whether its downstream obligations are met.

The irrigation season in Colorado and New Mexico ended November 1. Colorado flows increased as a result but are tapering down. Deliveries into Elephant Butte are now slowly increasing, but didn’t benefit from the Colorado flood. The contrast between Colorado’s prompt accounting and New Mexico’s limited conveyance is striking.

A Growing Water-Delivery Debt

The Middle Rio Grande entered the year 124,000 acre-feet behind in its accrued annual water deliveries to Elephant Butte Reservoir. Throughout the year, that debt has inexorably grown due to the complete failure of this year’s spring runoff and the Middle Rio Grande’s excessive depletions over the last 15 years. New Mexico does not manage the Middle Valley’s groundwater pumping, which accelerated due to lack of river water, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’s diverting more than New Mexico’s share, and poor channel conveyance.

Neither the State Engineer nor the Interstate Stream Commission have publicly discussed this year’s growing debt. Neither has emphasized New Mexico’s serious risk of a new violation of the Rio Grande Compact due to the Middle Rio Grande’s chronic taking of the Lower Rio Grande’s share, year after year.

I decided to calculate what happened on the Rio Grande in New Mexico from the storm. I used online river and reservoir gage data from October 12 through November 9, the last day for which a complete data set is available online. My calculations show that between those dates, 40,900 acre-feet of water flowed under the highway bridge to Los Alamos as measured at the Otowi Bridge gage. Colorado state-line water deliveries were about 60 percent; the other 40 percent came from New Mexico springs and tributaries. The Lower Rio Grande’s share of that, which is the same thing as the Middle Rio Grande’s delivery obligation, was 23,300 acre-feet.

Elephant Butte’s storage increased only 14,000 acre-feet and releases were 100 acre-feet, creating an actual water delivery during this period of 14,100 acre-feet. The result: this a deficit of 9,200 acre-feet over this 29-day period was added to New Mexico’s 2025 debit. Roughly 40 percent of the water that should have reached the reservoir disappeared within the Middle Valley.

Some unknown combination of Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District diversions, increased groundwater pumping that induces recharge from the river, and the poor water-conveyance condition of the river channel upstream from and into the nearly dry Elephant Butte Reservoir absorbed or intercepted much of the flow. This is why so little of the high flows reached Elephant Butte, leaving New Mexico much worse off with regard to its Compact obligations.

Why I’m Tracking Deliveries Monthly

The Water Advocates for several years has urged the Interstate Stream Commission staff to begin paying public attention to water deliveries through the Middle Rio Grande each month and forecasting the year-end results. Sure there are uncertainties and unknowns, but both tracking intra-year progress and forecasting the year-end results are an essential first step to recognizing and managing this serious problem.

The State can’t manage what the State doesn’t measure—and that includes contemporaneous annual compliance as a year progresses. Water delivery debt has grown significantly during 2025, without any Interstate Stream Commission acknowledgement of that fact. Both the facts and state agency silence should alarm the Legislature and the public.

My independent review of this year’s Compact deliveries began this summer. I requested data at the end of each recent month from the Bureau of Reclamation’s engineer who operates the official Rio Grande water accounting model. Last month he discovered a problem with the initial condition for the 2025 accounting. We both made bad estimates because Reclamation’s Elephant Butte Reservoir instrumentation, which measures the reservoir’s water-surface elevation and determines its storage volume, became stuck. I misunderstood how the model accounts for federal storage of New Mexico water in Rio Chama reservoirs to ensure the six Middle Rio Grande Pueblos’ Prior and Paramount water rights have a full supply. The release of unused prior and paramount water between now and the end of the year should materially improve net Compact deliveries over the remainder of the year because it was properly accounted when it was stored.

The Outlook

I project the year will end with an annual 2025 Middle Rio Grande water-delivery debt of about 26,000 acre-feet and an accrued water debt of about 150,000 acre-feet. If so, that may give us two years to avoid a Compact violation rather than only one. We must use this time to stop and reverse the current trend, prevent the violation that continued inaction will cause, and begin working our way out of Compact debt. Any accrued water debt above about 50,000 acre-feet effectively prevents Middle Rio Grande water from being stored upstream in Rio Chama reservoirs.

A public agency can’t deal with a complex problem that impacts the public unless and until the agency names the problem and describes it. A problem can’t be managed if progress toward the desired outcome is not measured. The State Engineer’s job is to comply with the Compact. The ISC’s job is to gather accurate information, professional analysis, and make it publicly available. Both have the duty to communicate openly and promptly.

I speculate this crisis is getting the silent treatment by both state agencies because they don’t have the Governor’s consent to confront it. Dealing with this compact emergency is not in the Governor’s 50-Year Water Action Plan. Neither is water planning. If we have to wait for a new Governor to attend to New Mexico’s water emergency, it may not be in time to prevent a brand new Texas v. New Mexico case before the US Supreme Court. Failing to take serious action now is another step toward the huge risks and costs of the litigation that will follow a violation. That’s a poor legacy for everyone involved.

New Mexico needs transparent water management to prevent the looming Compact violation. It needs funding. It needs it now.

Illustration for Rules article

Nobody Likes the ISC’s Proposed Water Planning Rules

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Unanimous Criticism

When the Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) asked for public comment on its proposed rules for regional water security planning, the responses were nearly unanimous in criticism.

From acequia associations to wildlife agencies, counties to citizens, the message is clear: the rules fail to meet the Water Security Planning Act’s promise of regional, science-based, locally led, and participatory planning. Critics call the draft “unreadable,” overly legalistic, and designed to centralize power in staff hands rather than empower local councils.

The breadth of opposition from technical experts, grassroots leaders, farmers, and scientists alike underscores the fundamental problem: both the rules and the process to adopt them lack legitimacy.

Everyone Feels Excluded

Farmers fear losing water; environmentalists fear losing rivers. Scientists want rigor. Local officials want fairness. The Proposed Rules require improvement.

When every constituency feels unheard, the failure lies not in disagreement but in design.

A Deeply Flawed Rulemaking Process

Subject to available funding, the commission shall establish and conduct a regional water security program pursuant to the provisions of the Water Security Planning Act.  NMSA 1978 Section 72-14A-4 (A) (2023)

Seventy-three public comments were submitted by the ISC’s September 27 deadline. The ISC’s rulemaking procedure drew as much criticism as the rule itself. Observers expect the upcoming October 15–17 hearing to expose not only weak content but deep procedural flaws that fail to provide opportunities for participation the State Rules Act requires.

No Analytical Rationale

Filed July 17, 2025, the proposed rule came with no analytical rationale or evidentiary record explaining why any provision was chosen. The law requires a “rational connection between facts and choices,” but neither the factual basis nor the evaluated alternatives are visible.

The record consists only of the rule text, legal process documents, public comments, and prefiled staff testimony. The exhibits accompanying the testimony are historical; many of them would have justified the 2023 Act but are irrelevant to the Proposed Rule. They are limited to old handbooks, reports, and more recent open house presentations and summaries. None are directly cited in the staff testimony. Without linkage, they serve as background, not evidence.

No alternatives considered by staff were analyzed; no technical reasoning was disclosed. The public was asked to comment blindly. Commissioners are asked to decide without knowing the staff’s reasons for constraining key provisions of the Proposed Rule.

Staff’s testimony, filed after public comments closed, does not answer the basic question: Why are the rules written as they are? Instead, the testimony recounts history and asserts sufficiency, offering no transparent foundation.

Now the Commission Must Lead

Staff and contractors designed and controlled every stage of drafting, revision, and internal review, withholding their reasoning. The resulting Proposed Rule does not provide the clarity or rigor needed to ensure planning is meaningful and state funds are not wasted. The Proposed Rule is riddled with passive-voice constructions, misplaced modifiers, negative language, and ambiguity in direct violation of specific drafting standards for Rules.

When Commissioners and the public lack access to underlying rationale for the vague and ambiguously drafted Proposed Rule, meaningful oversight becomes impossible. The staff-centric process embedded in the staff’s Proposed Rules to implement the Act contradicts the Act’s vision of transparent, Commission-adopted rules to require meaningful decentralized regional water security planning without excessive staff gatekeeping.

Non-Evidentiary Hearing

The hearing itself will be non-evidentiary, disallowing sworn testimony and excluding the presentation of expert witness testimony or other evidence by interested parties. Questions will be permitted only from Commissioners, and the public will have no opportunity to challenge, clarify, or rebut statements made during the proceeding.

Worthwhile water planning must integrate hydrology, climatology, law, economics, and the social sciences. Establishing the technical and social planning program the law requires is a technical matter. Integrity requires the Commission’s understanding of transparent reasoning and its consideration of evidence commission members find credible.

A non-technical hearing format is inadequate for the complex, interdisciplinary water security planning program Rules. The non-technical hearing record will be a transcript of opinions, not evidence, leaving the Commission’s decisions vulnerable to challenge.

Compressed Schedule

Staff have filed thousands of pages into the record. Only the State Engineer and ISC staff may present evidence and testimony at the hearing. The public comment period closed September 27. Staff expert testimony was filed on October 1. The hearing starts two weeks later.

This hearing structure and the compressed schedule violate due process requirements expressed in “case law.” The State Rules Act specifically requires adherence to “case law.”

Selective and Unexplained Revisions

Staff testimony responds selectively to a few comments and revises portions of the draft accordingly; it fails to identify why certain comments were singled out for a staff response and doesn’t cite criteria or evidence. Such opacity erodes trust and risks rendering the rule arbitrary under judicial review.

Public Comments

Some of the 73 public comments advocated for specific water governance outcomes. Most comments were broadly critical.  Some provided detailed critiques, with many suggestions. A handful said the proposal was okay.

Scientists Want Science

Beyond process, agencies fault the rule’s substance. The New Mexico Department of Wildlife urged that councils be required, not merely encouraged, to use best available science regarding species and habitats.

Rio Grande Return and others noted that wetlands are omitted entirely.

A major coalition, New Mexico Wild, Audubon Southwest, Amigos Bravos, and Western Resource Advocates, warned that “may consider” clauses turn mandates into options. They called for a defined procedure to consider the needs of future generations, as the law explicitly requires, and for measurable accountability. Others called for the mandatory ‘considerations’ to be made substantive and reviewable, not simply be repeated from the Act without implementable substance.

Local Voices Seek Fairness

Community water systems raised parallel concerns. The Eldorado Area Water & Sanitation District questioned how priorities could be fairly considered and ranked across huge regions. Others said funding and prioritization criteria remain unclear. “Readiness” the only ranking criteria is undefined

Projects labeled ‘ready’ would be prioritized to outrank long-term programs and policies to balance water uses with water supplies, advance the public welfare, or protect water for future generations. Those efforts can’t be “ready” when proposed. They will require more time and resources, but they align with the law’s purpose.

Traditional Communities Demand Protection

Acequia leaders said the draft ignores centuries-old governance. The New Mexico Acequia Association warned that traditional uses remain unprotected and representation uncertain. The Cattle Growers’ Association voiced the same worry: that urban priorities would override rural needs without safeguards. Irrigators and Pueblos asserted their senior rights.

How Not to Implement Transformative Law

Unless the ISC reopens the record, files its missing rationale, and allows a fair process founded on rationale and evidence, this proceeding will stand as a case study in how not to implement transformative legislation.

Projected MRG compact debt at the New Year

A Clear Failure of Leadership to Protect NM’s Water

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Middle Rio Grande Compact Deliveries & Water Delivery Debt

New Mexico’s water situation is deteriorating; under the Rio Grande Compact, NM is accruing historic water delivery debt. This reveals a clear leadership failure in protecting New Mexico’s water.

As would be expected with a dry Rio Grande riverbed aggravated by uncontrolled diversions and groundwater pumping, the September compact compliance news is bad. According to the Bureau of Reclamation’s water accounting model, New Mexico’s water delivery arrears increased to -52,100 acre-feet as of midnight on September 29.  Reclamation can’t provide the end of September figures because the federal government is shut down.

Projection of Future Water Delivery Debt

Unless we experience a weather miracle, namely the remnants of a hurricane crossing the Middle Rio Grande, I estimate that by the end of 2025, cumulative water delivery debt will be about -165,000 acre-feet. New Mexico’s increasing debt trend will look like this.

My experience as Interstate Stream Commission Director (1997-2002) and “engineer advisor” to the New Mexico Commissioner, Rio Grande Compact Commission and my license as a retired water resources engineer qualify me to publish this projection. Time will tell if it is accurate.

The Urgent Need for Courage & Transparency

The Interstate Stream Commission Director’s September 18 staff report cites only the official compact debt as of January 1, 2025:

Rio Grande Compact Status – New Mexico’s cumulative Compact debit status is 124,000 acre-feet and Article VII restrictions continue to be in effect.

Nothing was said at the Commission’s September 18 public meeting about the Water and Natural Resources Committee’s September 12th meeting. Legislators charged that New Mexico water agencies lack courage and urgency to confront the imminent new new compact violation and prevent it.

Preventing this imminent new Rio Grande Compact violation requires the leaders of these agencies to tell us the transparent truth. No major New Mexico water problem can be solved until it is publicly named and described.

Legal Authority: State Engineer & Statutes

The State Engineer must act as the law Section 72-2-9.1 NMSA 1978 (2003) requires and the State Engineer’s 2004 regulations describe. These regulations are enforceable administrative law. The 2003 law is clear:

The legislature recognizes that the adjudication process is slow, the need for water administration is urgent, compliance with interstate compacts is imperative and the state engineer has authority to administer water allocations in accordance with the water right priorities recorded with or declared or otherwise available to the state engineer. 

The state engineer shall adopt rules for priority administration to ensure that authority is exercised.

This law and the associated regulations were written to manage the illegal overuse of water Lower and Middle Rio Grande.  The New Mexico Supreme Court in 2012 unanimously upheld the regulations. Successive State Engineers have not upheld this law or invoked these regulations.

Budget Battles: Legislature vs. Water Protection

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham requested $500,000 annually from the 2025 Legislature to enforce Middle Rio Grande water rights and confront the Middle Rio Grande water overuse problem.  The House Appropriations and Finance Committee under Chairman Nathan Small’s leadership refused to include that request in the budget, instead choosing to direct millions of dollars to oilfield produced water and brackish water treatment. That decision shows legislators who rightfully criticized and mocked both agencies lack of urgency are collectively guilty of the same failures.

Legislative leaders and state budget appropriators: where is your leadership to protect New Mexico’s water?

Expect 2026 to be Dry

Climate projections forecast that 2026 will be similarly dry.

Why This Matters

New Mexico’s problem isn’t so much that some people take too much, although that’s a problem, too.  It’s that all surface and groundwater uses together exceed with nature deplete more river water than the Middle Rio Grande’s legal share. Every extra diversion comes out of the water owed downstream. If we keep doing that, the question of how to get the Lower Rio Grande it’s entitled share to Elephant Butte will no longer be ours to decide. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide for us, with absolute discretion. They would order whatever it takes, even turning the Rio Grande into a controlled delivery canal like downstream.

That’s why it matters. That’s why we must eliminate Middle Rio Grande depletions of water owned downstream and work our way out of compact debt.

The Rio Grande Compact is a perfect barrier protecting the Middle Rio Grande from downstream users demands, but only if New Mexico complies.

Black Hand & Blue Droplet truncated

Profit Above All Else: Bad For NM & Water

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Why Private Equity Control of Our Utilities Is a Dangerous Gamble

In the last two decades, private equity has transformed from a niche investment strategy into a global powerhouse. With over $12 trillion in assets under management—more than the GDP of every country except the U.S. and China—private equity firms touch nearly every sector of American life.

Turning over essential services—electricity and gas—to private equity firms like Bernhard Capital Partners (BCP) and Blackstone respectively risks profit maximization at the expense of customers, workers, water and our environment.

Private equity firms raise money from large investors—often public pension funds for firefighters, teachers, and state employees—and use it to acquire companies. Once they take control, their priority is to boost returns for investors, not to build sustainable operations or protect communities. This can mean cutting staff, raising prices, or extracting value through complicated financial maneuvers. These tactics are not theoretical. They have repeatedly harmed workers, patients, tenants, and customers across the country.

When private equity enters an industry, the evidence shows higher costs, lower quality, and weakened oversight. In nursing homes, for example, private equity ownership is linked to worse patient outcomes and higher mortality. In housing, Blackstone and its affiliates have been accused of fueling the global housing crisis by hiking rents, imposing heavy fees, reducing maintenance and instigating evictions. In utilities, the danger is even greater because people cannot simply switch to another provider.

Bernhard Capital Partners’ Troubling Record

Bernhard Capital Partners has no experience running a regulated gas utility. It has racked up violations with the EPA and OSHA and with state regulatory agencies in New York, Massachusetts, and Louisiana. Its track record should cause alarm for our communities.

  • Water treatment mismanagement. A BCP-operated company failed to properly operate and maintain a water treatment plant. “[A] large amount of sludge buildup was observed in the receiving stream,” according to regulators. “Bloodworms were also noted throughout the sludge within the receiving stream, which is indicative of stagnant water containing organic matter commonly associated with sanitary waste.” This is not a minor infraction—it reflects a breakdown in basic safeguards for public health and environmental protection.
  • Hazardous waste mishandling. A BCP subsidiary was cited for mishandling asbestos and other hazardous waste: failing to comply with notification and identification requirements, providing inadequate training to personnel, improperly processing, packaging, or transporting dangerous materials, and failing to minimize exposure. Such violations put workers at serious risk of illness and contamination.
  • Wage theft on public works projects. A BCP contractor was found to have shortchanged 84 employees on five public works projects by neglecting to pay full overtime and failing to report accurate payrolls. These violations resulted in a $222,141 penalty by the Massachusetts Attorney General. If a company cuts corners on workers’ pay in public projects, it raises questions about how it will treat utility workers and ratepayers under less scrutiny.

Blackstone’s Troubling Record

Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, has its own long list of controversies—several of which implicate fundamental rights and public trust.

  • Privacy violations at Motel 6. In 2018 and 2019, Motel 6, owned by Blackstone, settled for $19.6 million after disclosing guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a warrant. This warrantless disclosure endangered immigrants and violated customer privacy rights.
  • Genetic data concerns at Ancestry. In 2020, Blackstone acquired a majority stake in Ancestry.com, gaining access to millions of people’s genetic information. This acquisition triggered widespread concern about how a profit-driven private equity firm might use or monetize sensitive data. Blackstone has fought class-action litigation over misuse of data belonging to people who never consented to genetic testing but were linked through biological relations.
  • Illegal child labor at Packers Sanitation Services. The U.S. Department of Labor found more than 100 children (ages 13-17) illegally working in dangerous conditions cleaning slaughterhouses for Packers Sanitation Services Inc., a Blackstone portfolio company. A teacher first raised the alarm after seeing a student with hydrochloric acid burns. The Labor Department fined the company $1.5 million for these violations.

These examples are not random. They show a pattern of disregard for basic human rights, public safety, regulatory standards, and legal obligations.

Gas and electric utilities are not like hotels, slaughterhouse contractors, or tech platforms. They are lifeline services, with long-term infrastructure that must be maintained for decades. The focus must be on reliability, safety, and environmental stewardship. When a private equity firm acquires a utility, the temptation to cut maintenance, self-deal, impose aggressive rate hikes is intense. Ratepayers and taxpayers ultimately bear the costs, whether through higher bills or environmental cleanup after failures.

One of the most dangerous and least visible risks of private equity ownership of public utilities is the explosion of “affiliate transactions.” Under this model, the parent company steers lucrative “procurement opportunities”— construction, consulting, management, IT, and even financing—to other firms it also owns. On paper these deals may look like ordinary vendor contracts, but in practice they are legal self-dealing schemes that drain millions of dollars from ratepayers into private equity pockets. Because these transactions are often buried under layers of subsidiaries and shell companies, the Public Regulation Commission (PRC) faces an almost impossible task in tracking and evaluating their fairness. The procurement maze makes it easy for private equity owners to charge inflated fees, extract hidden profits, and shift risk back to the utility while reducing transparency and accountability. In short, the very structure of private equity ownership creates incentives to overcharge and under-deliver, all while shielding critical information from the public and regulators.

Additionally, because the owners of both BCP and Blackstone don’t live here, there is little incentive for them to conserve water, protect our environment, or build climate resilient communities. Yet our utilities face these challenges—aging infrastructure, the need for decarbonization, and increasing risks from extreme weather. Handing control to firms whose DNA is spending capital to supercharge profits, not create community benefit, is reckless.

Our state regulators and elected officials have a duty to protect the public interest, not private equity profits. Approving the sale of our gas utility to BCP and our electric utility to Blackstone would hand over critical public services to two firms with documented histories of cutting corners, violating laws, and putting vulnerable populations at risk.

Instead of repeating the mistakes seen elsewhere we should demand transparency, robust oversight, and public ownership models that prioritize affordability, accountability, and sustainability.

Write to the PRC, sign petitions, call/write your legislators. Activism is the antidote to despair.

Elephant Butte Dam and Bathtub Rings

A Few Legislators Agree: New Mexico’s Water Situation is Dire. Things We Must Do.

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Energetic Water Discussion in Taos at the NM Legislature’s interim Water & Natural Resources Committee

Elephant Butte Reservoir is 4% full; bathtub rings are evidence of serious crisis NM is failing to address, N Gaume photo 8/27/25
Elephant Butte Reservoir is 4% full; bathtub rings are evidence of a crisis NM is failing to address, N Gaume photo 8/27/25

Evidence of Overuse & Looming Compact Violations

The Water & Natural Resources Committee considered Middle and Lower Rio Grande overuse and Compact compliance together as one issue.

Legislators’ discussion began with a five-member Water Security Planning Act panel including ISC Director Hannah Riseley-White, former State Engineer Mike Hamman, Jicarilla Apache Tribe water manager Daryl Vigil, New Mexico Acequia Association Policy Director Vidal Gonzales, and me, a former ISC Director and Water Advocates president. I went last.

My three major points:

  • Our water situation is dire. Our individual water uses along with nature’s uses have outstripped our water supplies. I emphasized the trend leading to a new Rio Grande Compact violation.

  • The Water Security Planning Act should be implemented to meet its potential as a powerful water resources management problem-solving tool, and

  • Three priorities require legislative action:

    • Implement the 2023 Water Security Planning Act.

    • Modernize the Office of the State Engineer and the Interstate Stream Commission. including their compliance with their 2019 Water Data Act responsibilities.

    • Enforce water rights by changing the law and funding staff to make enforcement practical and effective.

Elephant Butte Reservoir once-drowned resort foundations and the marina, 4% full, N Gaume photo 8/27/25
Elephant Butte Reservoir once-drowned resort foundations and the marina, 4% full, N Gaume photo 8/27/25

 

Camping on the normally wet side of Elephant Butte Dam, N Gaume photo 8/27/25
Camping on the normally wet, upstream side of Elephant Butte Dam when the reservoir is 4% full, N Gaume photo 8/27/25

Legislators recognize Lower and Middle Rio Grande water overuse and compact compliance are one problem

Legislators’ were engaged. Many still had not spoken when Chair  Sen. Liz Stefanics decided to postpone the next panel. She said, “See, we are paying attention to water.” Several legislators directly referred to the Water Advocates handout or the compact compliance graphic while asking questions.

The Lower Rio Grande’s overuse problem in litigation since 2013 reaches a settlement

State Engineer Elizabeth Anderson, her office’s chief counsel Nat Chakares, ISC Director Hannah Riseley-White, and Chief Deputy Attorney General James Grayson presented a clear summary explanation of the Lower Rio Grande compact settlement with Texas, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the New Mexico and Texas irrigation districts.

All officials praised the settlement as the best New Mexico could have done.

In my educated opinion, by the time this is over the taxpayers cost for the litigation and the settlement will be at or over $500,000,000.

It’s one big problem

The legislators’ questions and discussion then refocused on Middle Rio Grande and Lower Rio Grande overuse. They again discussed it as a single problem — an alarm that is growing, uncontained, and far from a solution.

Courage

Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Dona Ana, made two strong points. A legislator for 25 years, he is a Las Cruces litigator from a long-established family that owns extensive pecan orchards. He bluntly pinpointed the missing ingredient: Courage.

Later, he mocked the Office of the State Engineer for “planning” a well-metering order for the Middle Rio Grande and “planning” to begin the Middle Rio Grande water rights adjudication. Paraphrasing, He said it was ‘much too little, way too late.’

Yes, but still better than nothing, as the State Engineer’s 2004 shortage-administration rules already have the full backing of the New Mexico Supreme Court (2012). The metering order is one of several initial steps. The water agency executives should be motivated to take those steps very soon.

Urgency

Rep. Matthew McQueen, the Committee vice-chair, asked ISC Director Riseley-White two direct questions about what the ISC is doing to prevent the new compact violation, referring to the trend graphic in the Water Advocates handout. He concluded, saying he was dissatisfied with her lack of urgency.

Authority and Accountability

To be clear, the Office of the State Engineer has the power to stop the overuse, but has not yet taken any overt, public action.  The ISC has the responsibility to know the facts and communicate the risk and urgency, and spend money to maintain the river channel. Neither the ISC Director, staff, nor any commissioner publicly recognized any urgency at the Commission’s September public meeting.

The Legislature’s existing accountability metric for Rio Grande Compact compliance should also hold the Office of the State Engineer accountable, not just the ISC. That’s because by law, the State Engineer has the specific responsibility and authority to prevent the Compact violation. The ISC’s purpose with broad authority includes “to protect and to do any and all other things necessary to protect” New Mexico’s water.

Courageous Actions Required

To New Mexico State Engineer Elizabeth Anderson: Please act decisively to prevent the looming Compact violation. It is past time for your office to speak openly about the risks we face — and what your office and others in authority must do to keep the Middle Rio Grande’s water future out of the U.S. Supreme Court.

We wish you Courage and Godspeed.

To Governor Lujan Grisham: Your executive direction to the State Engineer is needed: “do any and all things that are necessary” and within your authority to prevent this new violation of the Rio Grande Compact. Call for the Special Session to pass the 2025 water rights enforcement bill that you recommended by died before its final vote on the Senate floor.

Reference Section 72-2-9.1.A quoted below. This water law passed in 2003 and was upheld by the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2012:

A.  The legislature recognizes that the adjudication process is slow, the need for water administration is urgent, compliance with interstate compacts is imperative and the state engineer has authority to administer water allocations in accordance with the water right priorities recorded with or declared or otherwise available to the state engineer.

To the NM Legislature: Provide New Mexico’s water resources management agencies with the resources and capacity they require to do their jobs to protect New Mexico’s water resources. Pass the 2025 enforcement bill.

To the public: Demand officials take emergency actions to prevent New Mexico’s new violation of the Rio Grande Compact next year that will place the Middle Rio Grande’s water future in the unfettered and unappealable discretion of the U. S. Supreme Court.

Interested members of the public should know:

The Rio Grande Compact shields the Middle Rio Grande from downstream demands, but only as long as New Mexico stays in compliance.

Since 2018, New Mexico’s annual overuse has averaged about 22,200 acre-feet — small compared to average Rio Grande inflows of more than 750,000 acre-feet per year.

Groundwater pumping undermines the river’s flow.

Coming Soon

Articles describing,

  1. The looming risk: If New Mexico fails to prevent a new Rio Grande Compact violation, the State’s neglect will impose severe risks on the State and Middle Rio Grande residents. The article will describe why and how the  Compact violation risks our river and our lifestyles.

  2. Polycentric water governance: Effective stewardship requires state government, local governments, and the special districts that supply water to share authority and responsibility. Only by working together can we manage common water supplies to meet today’s needs and secure water for future generations of New Mexicans.

  3. Actions the State must take and should consider.

 

Hyperlinks

Four Water Advocates panel handouts are are posted by the committee under Item 9. They include:

My update shows the goals are unchanged and that progress is slow, too slow for water security.

View the Taos News report of the panel presentations.

View the Legislature’s webcast of the panels beginning at 9:16:45.

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Southern Communities Clean Water Fight; Data Center Threats

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At the Southern tip of our state, community members of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa have been fighting for clean and safe drinking water for years, plagued with high levels of arsenic contamination in their drinking water, and a water authority that chronically fails to address this issue.  Residents now face yet another battle for that fundamental right: BorderPlex Digital’s “Project Jupiter,” threatens to deplete what little usable water is left. Project Jupiter is a hyperscale, multi-data center project proposed in Santa Teresa, and at this time, one of the largest data center projects proposed in the nation. 

Data centers require massive amounts of water to operate, while also using unfathomable amounts of electricity. In response to water usage concerns in a region that’s been in extreme drought for decades, Project Jupiter claims it will utilize a “closed-loop” system, supposedly requiring only a “one-time” draw from the local groundwater. However, the concept of a “one-time” draw of water for a data center just isn’t real. “Closed-loop” systems still require additional water supplies, due to the necessary recycling of the water over time, as well as the evaporative cooling processes utilized to cool the used-water. “Closed-loop” systems also use significantly more electricity than other data center cooling-systems, ultimately misusing more water in the process.

Organizers protest a proposed $165 billion data center campus that BorderPlex Digital Assets wants to build in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. (Diego Mendoza-Moyers / El Paso Matters)

Data centers, like Project Jupiter, are springing up across the nation and, once built, quickly become the largest consumer of water and electricity in each locality. A large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of drinking water a day, totaling up to 1.8 billion gallons of water used in just one year. Currently, BorderPlex Digital plans to have at least four large data centers in operation for Project Jupiter. 

Data centers are water guzzlers, and in a region like Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, where it is unclear how much groundwater remains, a development like Project Jupiter is untenable. Especially when we know that Project Jupiter has named the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority (CRRUA), the public utility serving Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, as the water and wastewater provider for the project – placing the local public water supply at risk.

 Sunland Park and Santa Teresa caught national attention in late 2023, when local and state officials issued a week-long Do Not Drink Order for residents. A state investigation later uncovered that CRRUA had bypassed its arsenic treatment systems for at least a year and a half; dumped an “unknown” amount of caustic soda into the public water supply in November 2023, and ignored, community complaints of slimy, smelly, and discolored water with  children, adults, and pets becoming ill from consuming the water – until a week later when CRRUA issued the Do Not Drink Order. Since then, CRRUA has struggled to come into compliance with federal and state water regulations.

But the failure of CRRUA, the City of Sunland Park, Doña Ana County, and the state of New Mexico to ensure Sunland Park and Santa Teresa residents have clean and safe drinking water started long before the water crisis of 2023. Sunland Park and Santa Teresa’s public water supply has exceeded the federal health limits for arsenic for decades, and CRRUA has intermittently shut off its arsenic treatment facilities and bypassed its treatment systems, sometimes for years at a time –  while consistently failing to notify the public when their water is unsafe to drink and consume.

Since the days of the ASARCO-smelter plant, which operated nearby and  left centuries-worth of toxins and arsenic in the soil and groundwater of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, and the local landfill and a medical waste incinerator in Sunland Park that became a key environmental justice case in the 1990s, extractive and polluting industries have targeted Sunland Park and Santa Teresa. This has left  community members without critical access to clean drinking water. Now, Project Jupiter threatens to repeat that harmful and discriminatory history and take advantage of what little usable water Sunland Park and Santa Teresa have left. Local community members have questions that remain unanswered, while local and state officials rush to push Project Jupiter forward quickly for the potential approval of tax breaks.

Project Jupiter is a threat to New Mexico’s scarce water supplies and if it goes through, is yet another act of systemic violence and injustice against New Mexico’s southernmost communities. 

What you can do: Take action in support of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa communities by submitting a letter to the Doña Ana County Commission by the upcoming September 19th Public Hearing when $165 billion in Industrial Revenue Bonds for Project Jupiter will be voted on. Urge commissioners to vote no. Click here to send a letter which you can personalize. Thank you!

Bottled Water from Los Lunas?

Protest Niagara’s Lease of PNM’s Abandoned Water Rights

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A pallet of bottled water
Bottled water at $1.74/gallon + plastic pollution; ABQ tap water costs $0.003/gallon

A permit application by Niagara Bottling, the Village of Los Lunas, and PNM to move old PNM water rights to Village wells for use at Niagara’s bottling plant faces strong legal objections. I formally protested this application to the State Engineer because it would do public harm. It would worsen the Middle Rio Grande’s Compact debt with Texas by relying on unused PNM water rights to increase the Village of Los Lunas’ groundwater pumping. According to a recent New Mexico Supreme Court ruling, the PNM water rights this permit application relies on may no longer exist.

My protest is based on six key points:

  1. The Water Rights Are Abandoned
    On July 2, 2025, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that unused water rights can’t just sit on a shelf. If water hasn’t been put to beneficial use in a reasonable time, the right is presumed abandoned. PNM hasn’t used these licensed water rights recently. Through this permit application, PNM is again attempting to lease them. The characteristics of the proposed transaction appear to violate the “anti-speculation doctrine” adopted in the NM Supreme Court’s July 2 unpublished opinion.
  2. New Mexico Faces Looming Compact Trouble
    Our state is about 160,000 acre-feet behind on water deliveries to Elephant Butte required by the Rio Grande Compact. Approval of this application would add more pumping, which would further reduce river flows legally belonging to water users downstream of Elephant Butte. This would push New Mexico closer to legal limits that, if violated, will result in Texas filing a new compact lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court.
  3. United States Supreme Court Actions Are Without Recourse
    If New Mexico violates the cap on the Middle Rio Grande’s water delivery debt and Texas files a new interstate stream compact violation complaint, the U.S. Supreme Court has the first and final say — no appeal, no guarantee of fairness, and huge costs for New Mexico.
  4. Every Pump Counts
    Pumping groundwater in the Middle Rio Grande reduces Rio Grande streamflow, a fact that has been recognized in NM water law since the 1950s. This project would increase water depletions in the Middle Rio Grande.
  5. Niagara’s bottling operations waste water. I requested and reviewed Village of Los Lunas’ monthly billing records for the Village’s water and sewer services provided to Niagara. About half the clean water delivered to the bottling operation goes down the sewer.  This is wasteful.
  6. The Law Requires Denial 
    The State Engineer must deny permit applications that impair other rights, fail to conserve, or would do damage to the public welfare. This proposal fails all three tests. This application puts profits before people, legality, conservation of water, and the river itself.

Many protests were filed. An Office of the State Engineer hearing officer will consider the application and protests in a formal adversarial hearing process that sorts out the issues, facts, and applicable law. The process concludes with the hearing officer proposing findings of fact and conclusions of law. The parties litigate those before the hearing officer. The hearing officer issues final versions. The State Engineer makes the decision based on the hearing record.

The hearing process takes time. We won’t see a decision soon. It must be “Denied.”

Rio Grande at Albuquerque, no pools in sight, late July 2025 Photo: Wesley Noe

Why Water Planning Matters

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Aquifers are vanishing. Climate stress is growing. Decentralized water planning is the path forward.

New Mexico faces a stark and accelerating water crisis. In many parts of the state, aquifers are being depleted to support uses that cannot be sustained, especially agriculture dependent on non-recharging groundwater. This extraction is not just borrowing from the future: it is stealing from it. As climate change reduces snowpack, accelerates evaporation, and intensifies drought, the state’s water supply is shrinking.

Though aware of the situation, our political leaders seem unwilling or unable to confront its urgency, while the consequences of delay grow more severe by the year.

An “all hands” commitment to water resources planning (or more simply “water planning”) is how we propose to confront this reality. 

Rio Grande at Albuquerque, no pools in sight, late July 2025 Photo: Wesley Noe
Rio Grande at Albuquerque, no pools in sight, late July 2025.  Photo credit: Wesley Noe

Water planning is about solving problems. Good planning helps us understand our water supply and uses, face hard choices, anticipate future conditions, and make informed decisions to secure a livable and just future for New Mexicans.

The choices we make in the next few years will determine whether many communities across New Mexico have water security, or whether too many will face escalating crises. The time for planning is not someday. It is now.

Purpose of Water Resources Planning

Water resources planning is a forward-looking, problem-solving process to ensure the sustainable, equitable, and efficient use and management of water in the face of increasing and permanent scarcity. Its purpose is to identify and address water challenges, especially those driven by climate change, aquifer depletion, legal obligations, and shifting demands. It does this by thoughtfully and carefully integrating science, law, governance, and public values.

Water planning in New Mexico must take place in conformity with state and federal laws, while also confronting a basic truth: Many essential water needs and uses are not protected by law. Drinking water and sanitation for all, reliable supplies for communities, schools and hospitals, our beloved rivers and the sacred needs that they supply—these uses have no claim to water rights or have rights with low priority under law. Yet these needs are not going away. and raise the fundamental question: how to share shortages fairly. Thus, planning involves negotiating the rules for who gets what, when and how.

Drained aquifers cannot be brought back. Adaptive action is the only way to avoid catastrophic and irreversible loss. Urgency in understanding local situations now through planning will reduce the number of future New Mexico communities that will run out of water. Decentralization is essential. The problems are local and regional. Planning must be too.

Key Goals

1. Balance Supply and Demand

Assess available water under changing climate conditions and align this reality with current and future demands for people, farms, ecosystems, and economies. This requires a reliable understanding of the planning region’s water supplies and water uses.

2. Balance Competing Needs

Navigate the intersecting and often conflicting demands of:
• Urban and rural communities
• Agriculture
• Environmental protection
• Economic development

In New Mexico, this includes confronting the consequences of continued agricultural uses and proposed economic development new uses that mine groundwater at the expense of communities and future generations who will be left without. Planning must grapple with these intergenerational trade-offs and define transitions toward sustainable use.

Water measurements and hydrogeologic science developed and applied with scientific integrity must define a framework upon which the social methods of water planning. Water planning overlays the law, legal uncertainty, economics, and values on the facts. A beginning common ground between diverse interested parties can be built on understanding facts and the legal situation in a process where the parties learn about the problems that planning must address and get to know each other. 

Irrespective of the diversity of belief systems held by members of a community, it is essential that planning be built on a framework of agreed upon hydrological, hydrogeological, and meteorological data. (You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts!) Face to face communication among members of a planning group is essential in building the trust needed to get beyond “head in the sand” refusal to listen or to entertain opposing points of view.  That trust is key to building a workable plan.

The work of planning is social and probabilistic, not deterministic. A major social component is breaking through the head-in-the-sand attitude that is apparent in so many local business leaders and public officials. It may be difficult to bring recalcitrant parties to the table, but easier as they come to understand the risks they and their interests face by simply being members of the community. Their participation is needed to help find solutions.

3. Promote Long-Term Sustainability

Acknowledge the limits of natural recharge. Many New Mexico aquifers are essentially non-recharging, and climate change is reducing recharge further due to accelerating evapotranspiration. Planning must reflect these realities and support strategies to limit further depletion, extend critical supplies, and protect water security for future generations. Planning should support monitoring systems and adaptive governance frameworks to respond to depletion trends and new data.

4. Manage Risks and Uncertainty

Prepare for droughts, floods, compliance with legal constraints like the Rio Grande Compact, and intensifying climate volatility. Regional water budgets and enforceable demand management agreements are tools that might be produced through regional water planning to address uncertainty.

5. Protect Ecosystems and Water Quality

Safeguard river health, aquifer integrity, and clean water supplies through integrated, science-based planning. Planning should address nature-based solutions—such as increased natural infiltration of stormwater runoff, watershed restoration, ecological flow targets, and aquifer recharge zones—as climate adaptation strategies.

6. Guide Investment

Make sound decisions and recommendations for infrastructure spending. Prioritize projects, programs, and policies for implementation. Well-prepared regional plans will unlock access to state and federal infrastructure funding. Technical assistance should be provided to ensure all regions, especially underserved and rural areas, are competitive and ready.

7. Ensure Equity and Public Benefit

Plan to meet the needs of all people, not just those with the most power or resources. Respect and integrate tribal, cultural, and historical water rights in all decisions. This includes supporting capacity-building for Tribal and rural communities to ensure their voices, rights, and knowledge systems are equitably integrated into planning and governance processes.

8. Inform Policy and Governance

Provide a science-based framework to guide laws, public funding, institutional design, and transparent decision-making. Planning must support governance that is lawful and enforceable, while also addressing essential and sacred water requirements—like those for communities, hospitals, schools, ecosystems—that are often subordinate under existing water rights but are indispensable to a functioning society.

Without a clear planning framework and enforceable rules, these essential needs will remain vulnerable. Some will go unmet. The window for proactive, science-informed policy is rapidly closing. We must choose between managed transition and unmanaged collapse. Sound regional planning based on truth, urgency, and local leadership is the foundation for New Mexico’s water future.

ISC Commission members have the power to unlock access to funding so that across NM regions and regional leaders can begin now, instead of dates far into the 2030s, to begin to fulfill their lawful decentralized responsibilities.

ISC schedule-regional planning will wait until 2029 and beyond
ISC staff presentation to the Commission on June 18, 2025. Water Advocates photo
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The Crisis is Here, the Crisis is Now!

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The river is dry again in ABQ.

Does anyone notice other than the select few?

On Reddit they say, “The river dries up quite often actually”

Only three times in recent history, the reply states factually.

The crisis is here, the crisis now!

Response is needed, but how?

We must work together to find a solution,

we will find a way and make a resolution.

We can’t be divided and claim, “it’s only you, big industry,

or you, new subdivisions, or you, agriculture”.

We are in this together and blame will only inhibit our community culture.

“It’s not our problem to solve, shouldn’t the government be doing this?”

But really, it’s our home, our querencia, our water, our solution that’s needed for this crisis.

The crisis is here, the crisis now!

Response is needed but how?

We must work together to find a solution,

we will find a way and make a resolution.

The river is crying, the fish are dying, the cottonwoods are thirsty, the cranes dance for rain.

The loss of water in the river does not only cause human pain.

We must act now to protect not only ourselves, but our ecosystem too.

Don’t step back, don’t wait for the future, action is needed, now is your cue.

The crisis is here, the crisis now

Response is needed but how?

We must work together to find a solution,

we will find a way and make a resolution.

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From Neglect to Responsibility

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Seizing the Moment for Sustainable Water Governance in New Mexico

A Long History of Knowing—and Ignoring –  For more than half a century, New Mexico has known that its water future is imperiled by persistent overuse, unsustainable pumping, and institutional failure. And for just as long, it has failed to act on that knowledge. Today, we face a narrowing window of opportunity to reverse that course. The 2023 Water Security Planning Act and other recommendations of the 2022 New Mexico Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force offer a new legal and policy framework that could help New Mexico move beyond a legacy of neglect toward a model of proactive, inclusive, and science-based water governance.

Portales, Clovis, Cannon Air Force Base, and neighboring small towns face existential water shortages.

Ogallala Collapse Foretold—and Ignored – In 1968, the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (OSE) published Technical Report 31, authored by hydrologist William Galloway. The report warned with unambiguous clarity that groundwater mining in eastern New Mexico was unsustainable and would ultimately collapse the agricultural base of the region. A 1999 OSE modeling report confirmed this trajectory of decline for the Ogallala Aquifer. Yet no policy shift followed.

Today, the communities of Portales, Clovis, Cannon Air Force Base, and neighboring small towns face existential water shortages, as the aquifer they solely depend upon is nearly forever depleted.

The Middle Rio Grande: A Crisis Denied – A parallel pattern of neglect has persisted in the Middle Rio Grande. Overuse and over-diversion of surface water, coupled with excessive groundwater pumping, have undermined both ecological health and legal obligations. This has triggered a new Rio Grande Compact compliance emergency centered on Middle Rio Grande water overuse. The cumulative effect of local water development coupled with state inaction and self-serving local water institutions has pushed the system to the brink. Yet, there remains no unified plan or political will to rein in the overuse or enforce sustainable limits.

State Engineer General Counsel Nat Chakeres recently announced meaningful water policy changes are forthcoming.  His presentation covering both the problem and the solution is the best and most accessible I have seen. He admitted it may be too late.

The Governor’s FY26 budget recommendation included dedicated staff and office space for the State Engineer to begin essential regulation of Middle Rio Grande overuse. It died by inaction of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee.

Plans Unheeded: Policy Paralysis – In 2002, the nonprofit 1000 Friends of New Mexico published Taking Charge of Our Water Destiny, a sweeping and thoughtful roadmap for comprehensive water reform. The report called for state leadership, regional empowerment, and public participation in water planning. It urged the use of science, transparency, and collaboration as the foundation of decision-making.

Two decades later, those recommendations remain strikingly relevant—and largely unfulfilled. Once again, knowledge was not the problem; the failure was in the doing.

Once again, knowledge was not the problem; the failure was in the doing.

Public Welfare Standard: Dormant by Design – The consequences of that failure are now visible statewide: rivers drying, aquifers collapsing, and legal obligations nearing breach. Yet even now, decision-makers struggle to apply the tools that already exist. One of the most powerful is the statutory requirement that water rights transactions be consistent with the public welfare of the state. Though this criterion was added to New Mexico law in the 1980s, it has never been defined or interpreted to reflect today’s hydrologic, ecological, or societal realities.

As legal scholar Susanne Dooley Hoffman wrote in 1997, the public welfare standard is a dormant authority—a tool requiring additional legislative definition to ensure that private water use aligns with the broader needs of communities, ecosystems, and future generations. These essential and equitable needs were described by Mr. Chakares as valid claims “that are not going away.”

Ms. Hoffman-Dooley argued that the Legislature’s designation of “the public welfare of the State” as one of three statutory criteria for the State Engineer’s discretionary approvals without defining it is unconstitutional. Almost three decades later, we now await a New Mexico Supreme Count decision related to an illegal lease of a previously dormant Pecos River water right in the Intrepid case by a State Engineer that abused the public welfare of the state criterion. The ISC protested the application that the State Engineer later approved because it was so obviously counter to the public interest and dollars spent to comply with the Pecos River Compact.  The State Engineer fired the ISC Director. In this case, the ISC persisted, and will be vindicated in the forthcoming decision.

Here again, the problem is not in the knowing, but in the failure to act.

Sufficient understanding and the political will to confront New Mexico’s existential water crisis does not yet exist in the Governor’s office or the Legislature.

Leadership Vacuum: Executive and Legislative Inaction – This long pattern of neglect—in science, in policy, and in law—must end. Yet the failure is not only administrative. It is also legislative. During the interim between sessions, legislative committees often hold hearings that illuminate the gravity of New Mexico’s water problems. These hearings gather testimony, generate interest, and highlight urgent needs. But rarely—if ever—do they result in committee-sponsored water policy reform legislation. In the 2025 session, the Legislature essentially ignored water resources sustainability altogether.

Meanwhile, the Governor’s office provided no water resources sustainability leadership, leaving state water institutions with a crippling lack of permission to take the bold steps required. Inaction makes it clear that sufficient understanding and the political will to confront New Mexico’s existential water crisis does not yet exist in the Governor’s office or the Legislature.

Effective water governance cannot flourish without transparency, accountability, and public inclusion.

The ISC Restricts Participation – Interstate Stream Commission’s policies are problematic examples. In March 2025, the ISC staff revealed its intended process for the Commission to promulgate regional water planning rules. The announced process would limit technical and expert testimony to only those experts selected by the ISC staff, not withstanding due process guarantees of law. Another example: the ISC’s public comment policy requires a written submission 72 hours in advance with no opportunities for public engagement at ISC public meetings.

At a time when broad civic engagement is critical, the Commission’s approach is misaligned with the scale and urgency of the water supply challenges facing the state. Effective water governance cannot flourish without transparency, deliberation of policy decisions in public, accountability, public inclusion, and yes, due process.

A Path Forward: The Promise of Polycentric Governance – The Water Security Planning Act of 2023 provides a way forward. For the first time, it mandates the creation of regional water planning councils empowered by statute and supported by state resources. These councils represent a shift toward polycentric governance: a model that recognizes the diversity of New Mexico’s water challenges and enables regionally informed solutions within a statewide framework. But that potential will not be realized if state institutions cling to the command-and-control habits of the past.

We have the legal foundation and the scientific understanding. What remains is the political courage to act.

What Must Change: Vision, Function, and Courage – To succeed, the water planning program must be grounded in a clear vision: one that distinguishes the appropriate roles of state and regional actors, prioritizes transparency and public participation, and builds from the ground up. Funding must follow function. Councils must have the means to organize themselves, evaluate and understand water data, and propose actions suited to their unique conditions. And the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission must lead by enabling—not overriding—local and regional responsibility.

No More Waiting – New Mexico has waited far too long to confront its water realities. But today, we have sufficient legal foundation, scientific understanding, and the community will. We lack the political courage of our elected and appointed leaders to lead and share power to confront our water crisis. To date, they collectively lack political will. We, and they, must change that.

Let’s take charge of our water destiny, together.

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