By Mary Alice Murphy

Public comment at the New Mexico Central Arizona Project Entity meeting of March 7, 2017, followed recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, roll call for those members present and those members and others attending by phone, plus approval of the agenda and the minutes.

Donna Stevens, Upper Gila Watershed Alliance executive director, who said the group has 200 members and then said more like 400, spoke.

"I admire the persistence of this body," Stevens said. "You keep going in the face of insurmountable obstacles. At the last meeting, we learned that the state of New Mexico and The Nature Conservancy have denied putting a project on their properties. I missed a couple of meetings, and I'm not sure where you are on amending the joint powers agreement to allow non-diversion projects. That's the way to go."

Gerald Schultz, representing New Mexico Natural Resource and Conservation District projects, said he left literature on the back table, including information on an upcoming workshop in Thatcher, Arizona.

"I have previously mentioned that the total public involvement of this organization is short of what would be expected," Schultz said. "This is especially so, since public funding makes this organization run, and federal requirements are that federal public funding mandates public involvement."

He said the lack of a public information person to carry out the mandate along with the three-minute time limit contribute toward not having a good total public involvement. "Furthermore, this organization should provide information to the public in a separate setting, not for the public to try and seek it."

"Since this will never change, and might even get worse," Schultz said, in a veiled threat, that he is going to start a slow process of contacting the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General to make a formal complaint, as well as requesting an audit of the total public comment involvement process. "If I am unable to make any progress with the attorney general's office, then I will go to the federal level and contact the Solicitor General's Office."

Allen Campbell, Entity member representing the Gila Hot Springs Irrigation Ditch, gave a report, "Harvest Scenarios, the beginning of a Business Plan," on his findings based on a spreadsheet developed by the Interstate Stream Commission's former Gila Project Manager Craig Roepke.

"The model was not designed as a method of evaluating for how much water we could take, but for how much water was available," Campbell said. "I stayed in the weeds of this program to get more data out of it. For instance, on one tab, I subtracted the Mogollon from the Gila River. That increased yield significantly. The latest path I took is in this report."

His report begins with: "Before this entity can make an informed assessment of AECOM's 30 percent engineering study for the NEPA requirement, we need to look at harvest, storage and distribution protocols. Equally important, we need a financial outline. Since we will be managing a valuable commodity, both buying and selling water, let's do it in a business-like method."

Campbell used filters to get four different scenarios that give comparisons among annual harvest limits. He said storage limits and seasonal harvest limits can be derived from them.

He presented a report with several detailed graphs showing the various possibilities all using the 33-year report of available water.

He alleged that when the available water was captured for the year only during spring runoff that it could fail to show the sometimes plentiful fall and winter runoffs.

"Sixty-six percent of the years, some water could be taken if it was not over-appropriated and if storage was available," Campbell said.

One graph showed the annual diversion amounts and rolling 10-year totals. The AWSA allows no more than 64,000 acre-feet of water to be taken in a year with a 140,000 acre-feet total over any 10-year period. He said a storage holding at least 57,000 acre-feet would be needed only once in the 33-year history he looked at.

"We can get almost as much water with a lower storage rate," Campbell said. "The storage doesn't have to be big to get water."

Wendel Hann, representing the Gila Farm Irrigation Association, complimented Campbell on doing "deep analytical work."

"The four spreadsheets are the crux of the report," Campbell said. "I stayed away from averages."

He said he never hit the 64,000 acre-feet that could be captured in a single year. He also never exceeded the 70,000 acre-feet allowed to be pre-banked.

Esker Mayberry, representing the Fort West Irrigation Association, said the chart shows that no water could be taken in 2012 and 2013. "If we have limited storage and cannot take water, the end user gets no water, correct?"

"Yes," Campbell said. "We were in drought, and Arizona, too, so they drained the San Carlos Reservoir. It's positive when we get most of the water in the spring, when there is less evaporation and use it in the summer."

On the business side of his report, Campbell said he talked to a relative who is in the banking business. "He told me there is a lot of expertise out there to help us crunch the numbers and to get additional funding. If we don't take all the water, maybe we can sell the pre-banked water."

The next item of business on the agenda was to determine which proposal for a website the entity members wanted to choose. At the last meeting, Mary Alice Murphy LLC (this author) and her webmaster, Jocelyn Garner presented a proposal, as did Joseph Badash for Ferguson Lynch.

NM CAP Entity Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez said he wanted to bring attention to one item. He said he was under the impression after the presentation by Ferguson Lynch at the last meeting that after the upfront cost of about $9,500 there would be no annual costs. "According to the proposal, Ferguson Lynch does have an annual cost of $2,000 for software."

He told the members he had presented the documentation of his having contacted four potential website creators and managers, but received only two proposals. So he met procurement requirements by contacting more than three, even though only two proposals were received.

Aaron Sera, representing the city of Deming, which is the second fiscal agent for the NM CAP Entity, made a motion to award the contract to this author under her LLC to create the website. It was seconded and approved.

Gutierrez also readdressed the request for proposal for engineering services to complete the 30 percent design of the New Mexico Unit.

He said the city of Deming would issue the RFP. He went through the proposed project description template and where changes might be made.

Sera said going through an RFP process would take months and refining the RFP would require changes each month.

"If you approve us to hire an engineer for the 30 percent, we can do it," Sera said. "We have it budgeted."

Gutierrez said he had received no word on whether AECOM would be completing the 30 percent design or would have to remove itself because of an alleged campaign funding violation. "We don't want to duplicate their work or spend money if we don't have to. I have spoken to several engineers who said they always want to evaluate previous work but may not agree with it. But they don't want to start over." He said everything AECOM and ISC has done to date can be found on the nmawsa.org website.

Sera suggested a committee of board members explore hiring an engineer. "What I don't want is to see us coming back each month with changes."

Entity Attorney Pete Domenici Jr., who was attending by telephone, said the board had already approved hiring an engineer.

Hann said in reality the Gila Valley has three ditches that are push-ups. "The Gila Farm Ditch diversion completely washed out, but the ditch itself has been full of flood water for the past two month. The other two ditches don't have water because the flood plugged them up."

"For the past 100 years, we have had on-pond storage," Hann said. "With more storage we could irrigate winter wheat. If we had aquifer storage recharge or a reservoir, we could have plenty of water. Nothing is new. We've been doing this for decades. If we had permanent dams or diversions for our ditches, we could irrigate when we needed the water. If we get more focused on pond storage, if we do winter irrigation it would recharge the aquifer. Ranney wells are not new either. None of this is new. We are basically working to get a decent amount of storage."

Vance Lee, representing Hidalgo County, said he agreed with Hann "totally, except for some of us farther downstream. We don't want to be forgotten. We need a fair amount of storage to push water down to us. I would like to sit with the engineer and say, these are what we need."

Gutierrez said he understood that. "The ISC has worked with us, but the engineer works for the ISC, not for us, so we can't talk to them. I want us to get to the point where an engineer can do something for us."

Kim Abeyta-Martinez, representing the ISC as a non-voting member, asked if the entity would manage the engineer.

Sera said Deming would not manage the position and the entity would need a contract manager.

Darr Shannon, Entity chairwoman, said the business plan Campbell mentioned could include provisions for the management of contractors.

She also discussed the findings the state auditor made on the audit of the entity in its first year.

The first was that a purchase order document was not available for an item. Second was over reimbursement of per diem, which the second fiscal agent, the city of Deming, found and fixed the $40 error before the audit. Third, the open meetings act violation the group was accused of did not receive a reason from the attorney general for the violation nor what they should have done instead.

Howard Hutchinson, representing the San Francisco Soil and Water Conservation District on the phone, said the audit acknowledged the entity had corrected the OMA at a future meeting.

The fourth finding, Shannon said was there was no supervisory of leave taking. Sera said because Gutierrez is salaried as executive director, he does not require a time sheet. "We made changes in policy."

"We have fixed all of these," Shannon noted.

Lee asked if the audit required approval by the body, and Sera said he would find out and it could be done at the next meeting.

Sera presented the budget year-to-date and said the entity had expended 19 percent of the budget. "We have $850,000 in the budget for pre-banking water but none of that has been expended."

Abeyta-Martinez noted that once the budget for 2018 is approved, if the CAP Entity hires an engineer, the budget might need adjustment, especially if a contractor is hired to manage the engineer.

In the executive director's report, Gutierrez said he had been working on refining the project. "The Nature Conservancy said it didn't find how it could see our project design built on its property. We have not received formal documents from the state on their decision on our using state property nor from TNC."

"In the event we are unable to use the Gila Gage site, we didn't put all out eggs in one basket," Gutierrez said. "We have additional alternatives. The AECOM document from last year goes into the alternatives. We will do an amendment on the proposed project. We still have Winn Canyon and the option of Spar Canyon for storage. We can use Ranney wells for diverting the water."

He said the Gila Basin Irrigation Commission would be having a meeting to firm up its scope of work. "It may get more engineering information."

"We also have the options of ASR (aquifer storage and recharge) downstream and on Mogollon Creek," Gutierrez said. "AECOM has agreed to re-evaluate the alternatives without the Gila Gage. Not using that site reduces the cost of conveyance, but may require more pumping. They have done the preliminary engineering on the options. I would like to take another look at the options, even if we need another meeting. I encourage everyone to look at these proposals from AECOM and send me comments. We have never removed any of the options. I would like some direction from you to move forward."

Hann said he "strongly" encourages everyone to take a look at the options. "It occurred to me if the engineer for the GBIC is telling them they can build permanent diversion structures, why were we focusing just on the Gila Gage?"

Gutierrez agreed and said the diversions could be part of the project. "We can submit an amended proposal. Most items can stay the same without the Gila Gage."

Campbell noted the Gila Gage was the focus because of its elevation. The second advantage was there would be very little in pumping costs. "But if you crunch all the numbers, it's probably cheaper to pump from one of these diversions, especially when you look at environmental issues. A lot of this planning needs to be done. The GBIC is a good discussion group. I encourage them to talk about it and make their voice heard at our next meeting."

Gutierrez noted that the Gila Gage location was chosen because of its bank stability, but "conveyance is expensive. If we don't line the reservoirs, it could be used as aquifer storage and recharge. We have up to 1,800 acre-feet in retention ponds in the upper valley. Mr. Lee talked about an extension of the water into the lower valley. We need to take another look at this."

He said that any of the infrastructure being developed by the GBIC could be used. "And we still have adjudicated water and Globe Decree water. We can do things outside the AWSA."

Gutierrez has spent a lot of time at the legislative session. He said the legislators had been told a diversion was not feasible and water cannot be stored. "I told them we have enough water to fill Caballo Reservoir. I said we went from storing too much water and made it smaller. Now the opponents say it's too small. Part of our plan is to firm up the adjudicated water. We can use Ranney wells, instead of full storage. We can still irrigate and have water in the stream. It's beyond me why the state wants to put blocks on our using the water. It's because of the lobbying of opponents. I showed the legislators slides and I showed them the amount of water. The more they learned is working in our favor. A lot of legislators have changed their minds, with a better understanding of what we're trying to do. We do have issues but nothing that we are unable to overcome. Please attend the committee hearings and let them know how important it is to have this water. Some of them are willing to listen, but not all of them."

Lee expressed his appreciation for what Gutierrez, Shannon, Hutchinson and Domenici have done "on our behalf."

Ramos agreed that they have done a good job "representing us."

Shannon said she and Gutierrez, Hutchinson and Domenici got a lot done. "We tried to reach as many representatives and senators as we could. Several were opposed to a diversion, but didn't know why. I think we made a huge difference by explaining why we're doing what we're doing. There is extreme misinformation out there. Howard did an outstanding presentation to the Water and Natural Resources Committee. We have to be proactive, so the legislators are apprised of what we're trying to do."

The next regular meeting is tentatively set for 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at the Grant County Administration Center.

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