The NMISC’s Rules and Draft Guidelines Lead Us Nowhere
The 1987 statute 72-14-43 NMSA, states “the future water needs of New Mexico can best be met by allowing each region of the state to plan for its water future.” After two rounds of mostly ineffectual water planning (1990s-2000s, and 2010s), the 2023 Water Security Planning Act (WSPA) was passed unanimously by the Legislature. Following up on Recommendation 2.2 of the Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force, WSPA was designed to require regional planning, by the regions, to effectively address growing water scarcity in regions across the state.
Early this year, 2026, the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (NMISC) approved a set of Rules to implement WPSA and recently posted for comment a set of subordinate Guidelines to augment the Rules. Comments on the Guidelines via a survey questionnaire are due by August 31.
The package of Rules and Guidelines, raise more questions than they answer. For example:
- How could any region organize itself, get to understand its hydrologic situation, negotiate a public welfare statement for the region, identify, evaluate, and prioritize programs containing policies and projects within the stated constraints – two years and a total grant of $50,000?
- The Rules specify the membership of each regional council as a collection of mostly political appointees, no need for water expertise. In some regions, the council will include over a hundred members. How could such a group develop a viable approach to mitigating scarcity?
- Where do the Rules and Guidelines require or even suggest that conducting a project of the magnitude of a regional water planning process will surely require at least one and possibly a team of dedicated project leaders?
- The very first sentence in the “objective” paragraph of the Rules says, ”The objective … is to develop … water security plans.” This is a recipe for yet another set of “shelf reports.” Why not focus instead on the real purpose? It could read something like “The objective is to help establish a healthy long-term water future for New Mexicans across the state.”
- Throughout the Rules and Guidelines, there is a heavy top-down management role assigned to the NMISC staff. Why don’t we allow the future water needs of New Mexico to be met by allowing each region of the state to plan for its water future?
- Why don’t the Rules and Guidelines address the WSPA recommendation/direction for communities within regions where local knowledge typically resides be supported to conduct planning for local components?
- One might expect a process to solve serious water scarcity issues in a region to result in one or more packages of recommendations whose collective impact could be quantitatively evaluated against the region’s hydrologic, legal and demographic situations. Where is the process of establishing a “preferred alternative?”
- We understand that the NMISC is under pressure, after more than three years, to proceed with the documents we now have. Those approved Rules and draft Guidelines provide a bureaucratic structure for developing a collection of ISC-driven shelf documents, just like the second round of water planning did in the 2010s, albeit perhaps slightly more formalized.
- With the current Rules and draft Guidelines, the WSPA potential is being squandered. We we will soon have a replacement NMISC water planning manager. We will soon have a new Governor There may be an opportunity to create a viable water planning process that would enable/allow regions to effectively address their water supply facts and their shared values. We recommend that NMISC step back to create a truly effective set of Rules and Guidelines that will make the new regional water planning program focus on adapting to growing aridity and increasing scarcity.
The New Mexico Water Advocates provided language during the ISC’s rule making that didn’t make it into the promulgated Rules but commissioners directed the staff to include the concepts in the Guidelines. None of it appears in the draft.