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Published: 05 October 2016 05 October 2016

Discusses website, auditing service, successor to GSFWC and draft agreement

By Mary Alice Murphy

Two people spoke during public input at the beginning of the regular monthly meeting of the New Mexico Central Arizona Project Entity on Oct. 4, 2016.

Kara Naber of Deming thanked the CAP Entity for holding its September meeting in Deming and requested the group consider holding future meetings there.

Ron Troy of the Hondo Valley near Ruidoso said he owns water rights and is in a constant legal battle with the state to get his senior water rights delivered. "My question is how you would explain to downstream users that you will be taking water upstream."

He said he and his wife sold everything to buy the senior water rights, and then built their own house.

"If you won't be taking more water, why is it worth $128 million?" Troy asked. "Do you really think you won't be seeing the downstream users in court? We have 120 people suing for our water rights being diverted upstream for Ruidoso."

He predicted no one with senior water rights would stand by and watch water being taken upstream from them. "Maybe you should investigate the Ruidoso situation."

Troy said he had done restoration in Idaho to get out of endangered species issues. "We were trying to take less water to get out of legal trouble. We were trying to get the environmental flow regimes back to the natural flow regimes to keep farmers in business. We would like to see you address this issue. If I went to the bank for a loan, the bankers would want to see your plan and detailed budget. You keep paying the engineers to do more calculating. And think about the 6 percent evaporation rate."

In old business, CAP Entity Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez returned to the discussion from the previous month about a website. "I have had some discussions on how to utilize the existing nmawsa.org website and be able to localize information and perhaps utilize local services from a small company, an individual or a college student."

Rose Hessmiller of Ferguson Lynch, which created the nmawsa.org website. said: "From what I'm understanding one thing that you would like is to help information dissemination, with possible portal calendering, scheduling, and a place for this to live, grow and be rapidly disseminated. This began as more of a segue from the state website. That site could be cloned, using a lot of things it already has. Some parts could go to print for you to take to remote locations."

She said she has done a lot of work with state and federal agencies, with a lot in conservation. "We could probably leverage what I've done for the state, by cloning it and building local capacity, with boots on the ground."

Hessmiller said if the code is already there, there would be no cost, "just turning it on and putting the information in based on your needs, with an information management system and a public facing piece for transparency."

Gutierrez said he had looked at some of the portals Ferguson Lynch had created. "The website can bring together some other groups, such as the county Watershed Group, the Grant County Water Commission, and other water projects going on in the region, such as the Interstate Stream Commission/New Mexico Unit Fund-funded conservation projects." He said the regional water plan was recently completed and the public could find out about that, too.

"On nmawsa.org, there is nothing about our community," Gutierrez continued. "We can grow the website for our regional group and have the website reflect what we're doing. I recommend we move forward."

Charlene Webb, Grant County manager and participating as alternate on the CAP Entity, asked who would be responsible for updating the site.

"It would probably be the responsibility of myself and the contractor," Gutierrez replied. "Originally Mary Alice (yes, this author) brought us a proposal for a website. Rose had the ideas of a student or Mary Alice updating it. Rose would offer training to whoever would do the updating. It will be more of a working website, with a ton of information. Everything that I've read about what we're doing is negative."

"I would like to respond," Hessmiller said. "The All About Watersheds was one of the first I built. What we built was just for the group's activity to have the functionality of a large site, with each section or space being able to be maintained separately. Many groups are supported by the website. If you build a knowledge system, you should always be able to update it. If you have posted a draft, you can pull it and put in the final document. We build community portals and you or one of your staffers can be empowered to do the updating."

Wendel Hann, representing the Gila Farm Ditch Association, said he is supportive of a website, but "cost is an issue. I think it's important to get out the technical information. Several of my colleagues are listening to the information coming out of some of the candidates. Where does an individual go to read the correct information, coming from the horse's mouth?"

Darr Shannon, CAP Entity chairwoman, asked where the group goes next and what be would the cost.

Gutierrez said the group needs the proposal on paper plus the cost of deliverables. "I would love to have conversations with the board members of what they would like to see. That information should come from here. We need branding. I can put something together and make sure it is what the board wants."

Shannon asked the members of the entity to get their input to Gutierrez by Tuesday, Oct. 11.

Vance Lee, representing Hidalgo County, said he was in full support of going forward, with cost being a factor. "Many of the questions from the fellow about Ruidoso, we have answered over the years. If we had a website, we could refer him there."

Howard Hutchinson, representing the San Francisco Soil and Water Conservation District asked what level of cybersecurity "could we have? I don't want anything on the site that is from a source other than from the CAP Entity."

Hessmiller said in the code and database for the nmawsa.org website, one of the most important items is the security, if it can be cloned from the site. "I worked on it with Sandia National Lab, and we've been building water portals worldwide. Security is very important. We don't use WordPress or Joomla!, which can easily be hacked. Every site we build with security in mind. You can keep it at your level of privacy and your level of security."

Shannon asked if Hessmiller had anywhere near an estimate of cost.

"If we're allowed to clone the code, it will be a tremendous cost savings," Hessmiller replied. "As well, if we are allowed to piggyback on their server, it would be a cost saving. What it most important is that it would be right out of the box and ready to go. I'm hearing you want information, as well as a place for meeting notes and announcements. For a simple design, it would cost around $10,000 to $15,000. I will work with your budget."

Shannon said she heard from the members that they are asking for a proposal for a website to put the most important information with good security.

"I will engage with the ISC," Gutierrez said.

"I think they will make it easy to come back with a proposal," Hessmiller said. "I ask the members to let me know what functionality they want. What services have you seen on other sites? Take a week for determining what functionality you want to see supported, and send it to Anthony."

Shannon asked for a motion to move forward with the project and to get information to Anthony by Oct. 11, so Hessmiller would know what the members want and can build the site.

A motion was made and approved.

The next item of business was to discuss, with or without action, a memorandum of understand between the New Mexico State Auditor and the NM CAP Entity regarding the NM State Auditor providing professional services in the performance of the financial and compliance audit of the agency from July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016.

Gutierrez said the discussion at last month's meeting was confusing, because "we thought, as a lot of entities do here, that we could hire our own auditor, but this one needs to be actually audited by the New Mexico Office of the State Auditor. This is the MOU and how much it costs. The MOU spells out all the deliverables. At the last meeting, we approved the Deming auditor, but we can't use that one. Aaron (Sera, representing the city of Deming, but absent from this meeting) has taken care of that issue. I recommend approval of this MOU."

Shannon said she was told the cost would be $10,000 or less. "We are new and may be a risk."

The motion was made and approved.

The next item on the agenda was a discussion to determine a successor to the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission. "We will meet directly after this meeting to consider a resolution naming the CAP Entity as the successor to the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission. In the commission's JPA, it has a section for termination. It seems the JPA was written to do what the CAP Entity is now doing, so I think this is right in line with that. This board needs to make sure it is ready to accept the role of the GSFWC."

"In your vision, does this involve additional effort beyond what we're already envisioning here?" Hann asked.

"I wouldn't see it as an additional burden," Gutierrez said.

Hann asked if there were any fiscal agent responsibilities still outstanding for the water commission.

"We use the same fiscal agent," Gutierrez replied. "The only part left is to pay the rest of the bills, and distribute the remaining funds to the entities that had put dues into the commission. We can look up which ones contributed.

"The Gila-San Francisco Water Commission was the original one to recommend the establishment of this New Mexico CAP Entity," Gutierrez noted. "The CAP took off from where the water commission left off. (Attorney) Mr. (Pete) Dominici (Jr.) and I talked about keeping the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission intact, but we think this entity is right in line with what we're doing."

Gutierrez noted that Sera, representing Deming "as the fiscal agent for both groups, doesn't want to juggle two pots of money. We will pay any outstanding bills and we have no other contractual obligations."

He said that the water commission was a planning organization and had no responsibility for following through. "I know of no other contracts."

Domenici noted that the joint powers agreement for the CAP Entity is moving forward with a project. "The purpose of the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission was to move forward on planning non-diversion projects, but it had no money for funding any action. There will be a request to the ISC to amend the CAP Entity JPA to bring back a few non-diversion projects. It would coordinate with what we're already doing. It would give the CAP Entity the authority to move forward with or support non-diversion projects, so we would take on the consulting process."

ISC Attorney Dominique Work was at the meeting telephonically. "I want to clarify that non-New Mexico Unit projects are indeed moving forward."

"The ISC-approved ones are certainly moving forward," Domenici concurred. "We have no new proposals in place to be considered."

"Considering this conversation, I move the CAP Entity takes on the responsibilities as the successor of the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission, which was the successor to the Southwest Water Planning group, as named in the AWSA," Lee said. It was seconded and approved.

On the agenda for discussion only, was a draft funding agreement between the ISC, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the NM CAP Entity regarding the NEPA process.

"The CAP Entity's portion is to ensure the agreement and finances are fiscally responsible," Gutierrez said. "Part of the obligation is for us to receive reports on how the money is being spent and how the NEPA process is proceeding. We will wait until the ISC approves it, and we may need a CAP Entity special meeting to approve it."

Lee said he had a couple of questions. "I think I saw in the agreement that we would have approval power if the Bureau of Reclamation changes a portion. And my second question is that before this meeting, it has been indicated to us that after Reclamation and the ISC have an agreement, we would also have an MOU with the ISC?"

"This agreement would not eliminate the second agreement," Gutierrez said. "This is primarily for funding. The MOU with the ISC will spell out more of our responsibilities. As part of this process, there will be scoping and public input. The Bureau of Reclamation and ISC have not yet approved this MOU, but they wanted one that had the financing in it at the same time. The CAP MOU with the ISC will come at a later date. As soon as Reclamation and the ISC have their MOU, we can bring ours forward."

"What will be our roles and responsibilities?" Hutchinson asked. "It says in the agreement projects presented by Reclamation."

Work said this is primarily an agreement on the funding. "The Bureau of Reclamation would present a budget each year. Once the project plan is drafted, it will come to the CAP Entity to vote on and then to the ISC, so you will determine what the money is spent on."

"We are using the same process for the project and the supplemental agreement," Work said. "Anthony has been involved in the discussions, and I would expect him to continue to be involved." She noted a newer version had additions that had not been completed when the copy was sent to the CAP Entity members. "This is not the final version. There will be another version for you to approve."

Hann said he was trying to get an idea of how much Reclamation was contributing to the process or "are they looking for 100 percent reimbursement?"

Gutierrez said it was his understanding that Reclamation expects 100 percent reimbursement. "Their contribution has been prior to NEPA."

Work said there are two sets of expenses for ReclamationG