By Mary Alice Murphy
Rosemary Romero and Joanne Hilton serve as contractors for the Interstate Stream Commission to help the four-county region develop strategies and deliverables for the local plan to be incorporated into the State of New Mexico Water Plan.
"We have until June 30 for the deliverables," Romero said at the meeting Thursday afternoon in the Town Hall Annex.
Hilton filled in those who were attending for the first time. The Regional Water Planning came out of a case where New Mexico could not just take water without a plan in place.
"A couple of years ago, we began the process again, because the old regional plans were out of date," Hilton said. "The old plans had no standard methodology, so this time, we developed a common methodology for the basis of this round of planning.
"At this meeting will try to get as far as possible to define strategies and we will put them into draft form and get them back to you for comments," Hilton said.
"We have also done some updates to the Projects, Programs and Policies list," Romero said. "We need to include all proposals that entities have on their Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plans and every project they have on the PPPs. The broader strategies are for the region. The list of PPPs will go into the regional plan."
"We are not trying to prioritize the list of PPPs," Hilton said. "It's a process to help inform the conversation. If your project is on the list and you apply for Water Trust Board funding, you get points."
She handed out four blue and two red dots to each person for later in the session. "This voting process in not precise. We will talk about the projects that were brought up before, so if you have any other regional projects you want to include, now is the time."
"I have heard the need for capacity building and more training for smaller water associations," Hilton said, "so you can recommend that to inform the state policy. It's up to you all on what to include in your regional plan."
The regional strategies, as reached by consensus in an earlier meeting and with changes made at this session, include:
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