Rio Grande water-rights owners form organization

By Jane Moorman

For El Defensor Chieftain

jmoorman@news-bulletin.com

   A group of Rio Grande basin water-rights owners are stepping forward to remind the State Engineer, wildlife habitat managers and environmentalist not to forget the true stakeholders as water plans are being created for the state.

   "This is not an agricultural organization," said Corky Herkenhoff of San Acacia of the Rio Grande Water Rights Association. "We are a group of people concerned with what's going to happen to New Mexico without water."

   The mission of the group, which was formed in August, is to promote the wise management and stewardship of the state's water resources to benefit New Mexico's present and future population.

   The grass roots organization was founded by Herkenhoff his wife, Donna, Mike and Kathy Mechenbier, Dr. Roland and Elia Sanchez, Chris and Paula Sichler, Scott Edeal, Larry and Laura Durkin, Martin Haynes, Suzanne Smith, Karen McAda and others.

   The group has pledged itself to:

   * Protecting the water rights of individuals and entities.

   * Ensure due process and procedure when changing water rights ownership and use.

   * Maximize pre-1907 rights for the benefit of all of New Mexico.

   * Work for equitable administration of water rights and water usage.

   The impact of the Endangered Species Act regarding the silvery minnow habitat caused the group to organize.

   "It became really clear with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that we have to create a win-win situation," said Herkenhoff of the court action regarding maintaining the endangered species habitat of the silvery minnow. "We want the State Engineer to stop and think before creating a comprehensive water plan."

   The bottom line for the group is to get the facts about agricultural water usage out to the decision makers.

   "The biggest thing we are against is ignorance regarding the water issue," said Dale Chavez, spokesperson for RGWRA. "We want all sides of the issue to have all of the information it takes to make a good decision."

   One misinformation, he said, is the quantity of water used by farmers. Because people believe the farmers use 11 acre-feet of water, the water plan organizers think the farmer should give up their water freely.

   "The real number is 3.8 acre-feet, according to 2002 irrigation information for the Middle Rio Grande Valley," said Chavez. "According to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District records of water used in its system, the irrigators used 268,000 acre-feet of water for 70,000 acres -- or only 3.8 acre-feet per acre irrigated."

   The misinformation arose, according to the group, when a former Office of the State Engineer official used the gross diversion of some past year.

   "It was a simple bookkeeping error," Chavez said. "They had failed to deduct the amount returned to the river before determining the amount per acre. This misinformation gave rise to hopes that new water could be found through simply improving efficiencies in the MRGCD's system."

   Another area of misunderstanding is the efficiency of crop irrigation.

   "Water used by the MRGCD irrigators goes to crops, riparian habitat and aquifer recharge," said Chavez.

   According to the RGWRA, the estimated consumption was 150,000 acre-feet to crops, 11,000 acre-feet goes to the trees and vegetation along the 1,238 miles of MRGCD waterways, and 47,000 acre-feet is absorbed in aquifer recharge.

   "According to irrigation engineers, efficiency of crop irrigation can be mathematically expressed as a ratio of water consumed by crops divided by net water diverted, which comes to 56 percent," Chavez said.

   "In 1995, the State Engineer reported that most irrigation systems in the state were about 50 percent to 55 percent efficient. At 56 percent, Middle Rio Grande irrigators are at the high end of the efficiency range. Therefore, suggesting that huge efficiencies can be reasonably achieved in crop irrigation may be misleading, especially if current crop production is maintained."

   While conservation will extend the limited resource of water, it can not create new water.

   "A farmer uses a set amount of water," said Chris Sichler of Sichler Farms Produce in San Antonio, N.M. "I don't use too little, or too much. I use the amount that is best to grow my crop."

   Mike Mechenbier of Los Lunas said that "if water is conserved, it doesn't give anyone the right to the water except the owner of the water rights. The biggest misconception is that the water in the river is public water. The public is only entitled to what they run out of the faucet from the municipalities' water rights."

   There is an area where the irrigation system efficiency can be gained, but the group says it would mean eliminating the riparian habitat along the ditch system, which carries its own implications for environment impact.

   "Canals, return-flow outfalls, and, perhaps, even sections of the river can be lined with concrete. This would prevent seepage into the earth," Chavez said. "However, it would also destroy the bosque, which is host to a variety of plant and animal species. Consequently, any thought of the potential benefit to efficiencies has to consider both the enormous cost of lining the ditches with concrete and the environmental impact."

   RGWRA is against such a drastic measure, and wants the water planners to realize all implications that could occur with the state water plan before implementing the program.

   Regarding the aquifer recharge, RGWRA says the 47,000 acre-feet of water that seeps into the ground from the MRGCD irrigation system is estimated to be the source for about half of the recharge to the aquifer. The RGWRA considers the recharge to be a critical benefit to the Middle Rio Grande Valley.

   "It is no secret that experts believe we are pumping water from the aquifer at a much faster pace than we are recharging it," said Chavez. "This imbalance has raised concerns of eventual depletion of the aquifer. In the near term, it raises concerns of subsidence -- surface settling -- that could have disastrous effects on infrastructure and real estate, especially in the population centers, such as Albuquerque."

   One of the biggest points RGWRA is trying to make is that water is an economic unit, unlike air that is free. To have the right to use the water, an individual, group or municipality must own water rights.

   "Water is a commodity," said Mechenbier. "Agriculture uses 90 percent of the water because agriculture owns 90 percent of the water through water rights."

   The bottom line for RGWRA is if a person, government agency or species does not have water rights, they do not have the right to take the water from those that do.

   "This is a private-property issue," said Herkenhoff. "We want to protect our rights first, so we can protect what we own, then we can decide how to manage it better."

   As president of RGWRA, Herkenhoff says the group wants the state to balance what people value. "They must recognize peoples rights, recognize the limit of the system and then maximize the use of the pre-1907 water rights," he said.

   "There is very little we can do under the Rio Grande Compact, we only have a set amount of water to work with. We have to maximize the use of the transferable water we have available."

   The RGWRA members believe that the State Engineer's office, government entities, environmentalist and the water rights owners can work together to develop the state's water plan, and that New Mexico can be a model for Western United States water policy.

   For information about the Rio Grande Water Rights Association, contact the organization by e-mail at Protect@RGWaterRights.org or telephone at (505) 363-7892.