May we, joined in Life’s flow, share Hope’s Energy To Sustain Water’s Glistening Life
Almost all of us acknowledge at some level that, “WithOUT WATER there is NOTHING”. Water is a central element in every ecosystem and form of life on Earth. Why then, after the NM State Legislature unanimously passed the 2023 Water Security Planning Act, have there been many distractions from establishing a statewide system of Regional Water Planning & Management councils?
Precious time has been lost in addressing New Mexico’s rapidly escalating water shortages. More communities are having to live with severe water use restrictions from both surface water loss and depleting groundwater supplies. Recently the NM Interstate Stream Commission in response to the Water Security Planning Act has been establishing a series of regional water planning processes, some of which will tentatively begin in 2027 with others to follow in 2029 and 2031. Regional planning councils to implement these processes have not yet been established.
In the last week of August, 2026, New Mexico’s Rio Grande was totally dry for 87 miles.
Lawmakers and state agencies seem to have been distracted from working closely together and with other concerned groups to develop statewide regionally responsive programs that prevent funding sudden emergency measures to meet basic water needs. This type of long term programming could include water quantity assessment and mobilization of measures to justly allocate water to prioritized needs, as part of a web of water management that simultaneously builds water sustainability.
One distraction is patchwork funding of water planning and administration. There are some gains every legislative year, but not enough for comprehensive reform and to jump start regional planning.Other shifts in funding have added challenges to fresh water planning and management. A sizable amount of money was allocated for “new water,” the potentially quicker fix of treating brackish water to remedy New Mexico’s problems with increasing levels of drought (now aridification or permanent drought). These quick fixes have not been able to comprehensively address broad areas of water shortage needs of many small communities on the cusp of water disasters now or ensure future water sustainability.
The article “The Invisible Elephant in the Room” by Bob Wessely lists examples of specific water challenges in different areas of New Mexico. Invisible elephants are enormous situations that we ignore, bypass, and do not consider while living with their effects upon our lives. As that article notes, legislators funded all sorts of programs which are not as critical to life as water. Notably the burst of water recently sent down the Rio Grande was sent to see if plant and other river area life can resume living if it got a long delayed watering.
Another distraction can be people’s widely varying views of water in our lives. For some it is simply making sure the faucet still runs and the toilet still flushes. Others build water conservation into their daily lives, with xeriscaping, installing low flow toilets, showers and dishwashers. They may maximize effects of precipitation with rain barrels or systems to move snow to slowly water gardens or trees. For others water is a source for recreation like fishing, swimming and boating. Others have home swimming pools or hot tubs. Thus there are big differences between careful water users who live knowing that water must be used in ways that conserve it; and others who treat water as a limitless resource that will be endlessly available.
For some farmers water can be used (at times regeneratively) for food production. For still others, it is a commodity that can yield great profits when legal rights are secured for industrialized food production; or if it can be used as a tool for production of energy or extraction of elements used for that. These last uses of water at times fail to accurately assess potential negative or positive side effects of water processing or production which impact air and water quality, with negative health effects for people living nearby.
We often do not discuss water’s own busy life, cycling through everything from vessels transporting nutrients within our bodies, to bodies of water ranging from small springs to expansive ocean worlds. Water also constantly cycles through the Earth’s atmosphere via evaporation and through transpiration from trees (which is a reason for continuing to water them in times of water shortages). Weather reports note daily humidity levels. In New Mexico, these are often very low, drying our skin covering and eyes. Water in our bodies is part of the Earth’s water supply, moving around in us as part of its cycling in all life. Despite this expansive role of water, we often fail to appreciate water’s constantly critical presence in our lives and that of all life from the greatest whale to the smallest cells on Earth.
What can we do?
We can acknowledge that WATER, as all natural resources in Earth’s life, is vitally inter-related and inter-dependent, intertwined with a wide variety of us, animals, plants, trees, insects, even rocks. Each of us in quenching our thirst, and using water for hygiene, growing food, nurturing trees for shade, must learn from childhood on what a precious and abundantly essential gift water is. We must be taught ways in which we are obligated to responsibly use it and ensure its sustainability for future generations, including knowing which interactions sustain or endanger its existence. We must shift from thinking of water as a depersonalized commodity to water as the close friend it is for our very survival.
We can live sustainably with water and other elements of life by knowing them as the gifts of Creation that they are, learning how these elements live; and caring for them and all life by observing them as Gregory Cajete, a Tewa Native American University Educator recommends in his book Native Science; Natural Laws of Interdependence, as well as reciprocally interacting with them as Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests in her book The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.
Numerous specific water shortages, or big ones like almost 90 miles of a major river with only sand to show that it was there, reasonably feel extremely overwhelming. There lies lots of sand to stick our heads in. Yet people can learn together (especially through shared experiences) about how to help water in their specific regions. This works very well when groups are supported in working toward consensus. Lawmakers and those on finance committees who are not members of these councils can be more effectively engaged when we use the documented capacity of the human brain framing problems, supportive data and potential solutions in narratives (yes, story examples), photos and graphs to inform their decisions and in reports about results of regional water planning & management work.
Ultimately, we can change how we interrelate with water and all of a region’s water users to support considerations for use of water in ways that preserve its quality and quantity.
For water planning and management to work in New Mexico, we realistically must all be present with justly equal voices at discussions of how limited amounts of water can be best used, balancing that with viable ways of ensuring its sustainability for future generations. Water needs to be considered a special gift, which must be shared for the common good. We must use it responsibly, working steadily for its sustainability of its quantity with clearly defined and enforced protections of its quality.