Serious Inadequacies in ISC’s Sparse Draft of Water Security Planning Rules

February 24, 2025

via email to: Director Riseley-White for distribution to Commissioners

New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Attention:  Ms. Hannah Riseley-White, Director

RE: Public Comment on ISC Discussion Draft Rules & Guidelines for Regional Water Security Planning

Dear Director Riseley-White and Commissioners,

On behalf of the New Mexico Water Advocates, I formally submit this letter following our online comment form submission and the timely submittal of our detailed markup on February 21, 2025. Our Board of Directors unanimously approved submitting the NM Water Advocates comments and this letter, reflecting the urgent need for the ISC to substantially improve the proposed rules before promulgation.

The ISC should not rush to promulgation without substantial revision.

The NM Water Advocates request that:

✅ The ISC issue a revised draft incorporating substantive changes based on stakeholder feedback before moving forward with promulgation.
✅ The ISC provide a second public review period to allow for further refinement before finalization.

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1. The ISC’s Draft Rules Fail to Use Its Statutory Delegation of Authority to Create a Functional Program

The Water Security Planning Act (Section 72-14A NMSA 1978) delegated clear authority to the ISC to establish and conduct a regional water security program through rulemaking, but the discussion draft rules fail to translate that authority into a structured, functional framework. The statute does not merely call for passive facilitation; it charges the ISC with designing and implementing a comprehensive program that provides clear expectations, structured processes, and enforceable standards for regional planning councils. Instead, the draft provides minimal procedural detail, leaving essential programmatic elements undefined.

Critical Failures in Program Design:

❌ Fails to recognize that regional water planning is voluntary and does not provide inducements for regional participation or clear expectations of the public value the planning process is expected to provide to the region and its communities in exchange for state funding and support.
❌ Lacks guiding principles, objectives, and a procedural framework outlining the full scope of the water security planning program.
❌ Provides no criteria for evaluating regional plans beyond listing projects, creating uncertainty about how plans will be assessed and approved.
❌ Lacks accountability measures to ensure that the regional planning process is functional, meets stated principles and objectives, and results in approved regional plans that are as timely as good process will allow, actionable, measurable, and aligned with long-term water security goals.
❌ Does not establish the relationship and mutual interdependence of regions and the communities within them.

What the Rules Should Include:

✅ A structured process for councils to develop data-driven, science-based regional water security plans.
✅ Defined benchmarks and criteria for plan development and approval, ensuring consistency across regions.
✅ A clear outline of ISC’s administrative role, including how it will support councils, provide technical assistance, approve plans (with ISC’s endorsement for implementation), and assist regions with execution.
✅ A requirement for ongoing program evaluation to assess effectiveness and make necessary adjustments over time.

By failing to provide a cohesive program design, the draft rules leave critical gaps that will create confusion, inconsistencies across regions, and missed opportunities to ensure a coordinated statewide approach to water security. The ISC must take responsibility for fully implementing its delegated authority and issue rules that establish a well-defined, operational regional water security program, not just procedural placeholders.

2. The Rules Should Clearly Define Their Purpose and Objectives

The Water Security Planning Act (72-17A NMSA) envisions a structured, problem-solving process that enables New Mexico to address water security risks and plan for resilience at the regional level. However, the draft rules take a minimalist approach, simply restating statutory requirements rather than defining a workable, transparent process for regional councils to follow.

Request: The rules should explicitly define the goals of regional water security planning, ensuring a shared understanding among ISC staff, regional councils, and the public.

3. Regional Planning Cannot Be Limited to a List of Prioritized Projects, Programs, and Policies

Regional water security planning has two primary functions, prioritizing projects for the Legislature’s capital outlay considerations and bringing people together to make decisions and improve community water supply security. Most of the backlog of community capital project needs are for water and wastewater infrastructure that will increase the community’s infrastructure reliability but will save little to no water. Planning should be done objectively and productively in each region to meet region-wide objectives such as aquifer protection, compact compliance, and the safe drinking water for all.

The primary function of regional planning is to develop sustainable water security strategies, not merely to prioritize infrastructure projects. The current rules fail to require data-driven problem definition and do not establish a structured decision-making process for selecting strategies or programs that improve long-term resilience.

Request: The ISC should require that regional water security plans include:

✅ A detailed analysis of the relative priorities, benefits, and costs of community projects, programs, and policies eligible for Legislative capital outlay. This analysis should be based on a regional council’s consensus on prioritizing infrastructure reliability improvement projects that enhance the reliability and operational quality of community water and wastewater systems but little water resource security benefits.

✅ Projects, Programs, and Policies to Increase water security in consideration of the needs of future generations, including:

• An analysis of current and future water availability using the best available hydrologic data.
• A clear identification of water security risks and vulnerabilities.
• Scenario-based planning to assess alternatives before prioritizing solutions.

Without both elements, the regional plans risk being ineffective wishlists rather than actionable roadmaps for both community water supply and regional water resource security.

4. The Rules Do Not Ensure a Functional Regional Planning Process

The Draft Rules fail to define key procedural elements needed for successful regional planning, including:

• Decision-making processes within Regional Water Planning Councils.
• How stakeholder input will be incorporated into plans.
• Specific criteria for ISC approval of regional plans.

Request: The rules should clearly articulate:

✅ Consensus-building and collaboration requirements to ensure councils function effectively.
✅ Requirements for regional councils to provide meaningful public information and opportunities for public observation and engagement in compliance with state open government laws.
✅ Approval criteria that ensure regional plans align with statewide water security goals.

5. The Rules Must Require a Data-Driven Approach

The current draft lacks enforceable requirements for councils to seek and use the best available data in assessing regional water security risks. Past planning efforts have failed due to unrealistic assumptions about water availability, leading to plans that were not implementable.

Request: The ISC must require regional plans to be based on:

✅ Hydrologic, legal, economic, and climate data vetted by independent experts.
✅ Transparent methodologies for estimating future water supply and demand.
✅ A screening process to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of proposed strategies or programs of projects and policies.

Without these safeguards, regional plans may be disconnected from hydrologic reality, rendering them ineffective in addressing New Mexico’s water security challenges.

6. The Planning Process Should Be Designed for Success

Concerns:

❌ The proposed structure of regional councils is unwieldy. In the Middle Rio Grande, for example, the council may have well over 50 members, making consensus and collaboration difficult.

❌ The ISC has inserted itself into local governance decisions by appointing all local government representatives, rather than allowing governing bodies to select their own representatives.
❌ The two-year planning timeline is unrealistic, given the complexity of regional water security challenges.

Request:

✅ Reconsider council size and composition to allow for effective decision-making.
✅ Allow local governing bodies to choose their own representatives.
✅ Ensure the planning timeline allows for adequate data acquisition, stakeholder engagement, and collaborative planning to occur.

Conclusion

We request that the ISC issue a revised draft incorporating substantive changes based on stakeholder feedback before moving forward with promulgation, and that the ISC provide a second public review period to allow for further refinement before finalization.

We stand ready to collaborate with the ISC to refine these rules, ensuring that the Regional Water Security Planning Program fully realizes its potential. Our joint effort will meet the New Mexico Legislature’s need for a reliable process to prioritize water infrastructure and capital investments while addressing the need for enhanced water supply resilience for all New Mexicans.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

/s/

Norm Gaume, President
On behalf of the Board of Directors
New Mexico Water Advocates