By Howard Hutchinson
Re-published with permission from the March 2018 edition of The Stockman magazine
History of the Gila and San Francisco Water Rights Battle
In 1955 New Mexico entered the contentious water battle for Colorado River water in one of the longest running adjudication battles before the U.S. Supreme Court, Arizona v. California.
State Engineer Steve Reynolds' endeavor to have the Court’s Special Master recognize additional claims to Gila and San Francisco water rights failed. An estimated 30,000 acre-feet of claimed irrigation rights were lost due to the fact those waters were not in “present use.” The depression, Korean War, and drought had left many acres fallow.
Fast forward to the mid 1960s. State Engineer Reynolds, Governor Jack Campbell and Senator Clinton Anderson teamed up in an effort to restore the lost water rights. Congress was debating the Colorado River Basin Project Act (Act). The Central Arizona Project (CAP) was proposed to deliver a portion of the water rights won in Arizona v. California to central and southeastern Arizona via canal.
Bowing to Senator Anderson’s threat to kill the Act, authorization was provided for the construction of Hooker Dam or alternative and an offer to contract with New Mexico users for an additional 18,000 acre-feet per year of Gila River water.
Arizona representative Mo Udall along with national environmental organizations expressed grave fears that Hooker Dam would impound the Gila River up into the Gila Wilderness. Thus began the long and sad saga of obstructing and delaying any effort to develop this new water for the state and region. Supporting and opposing organizations sprang up populating countless meetings, forums and collaborative gatherings for the next fifty years.
New Mexico did not take advantage of the Hooker Dam construction and the offer of 18,000 acre-feet of water through the turn of the century. In that interim litigation to address Tribal claims for additional rights resulted in court settlements. Congress memorialized these settlements through the 2004 Arizona Water Settlements Act (AWSA).
In 2003 the Southwest Water Planning Group (Group) was formed for the Southwest Regional Water Plan (SRWP). The Group was composed of the southwestern four counties, municipalities and soil and water districts.
After the fact the Group was informed of the passage of the AWSA. None of the Group was a party to the negotiations. The AWSA called for a Fund to be created by the state of New Mexico to receive funds for construction of the New Mexico Unit or other water utilization alternatives to meet water supply demands in the Southwest Planning Region of New Mexico.
The Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) forming the Gila/San Francisco Water Commission (Commission) was finalized in 2006 and based on the information in the SRWP the Commission began looking at designing projects.
In 2007, at the prodding of Gila diversion opponents, Governor Richardson vetoed an appropriation to the ISC to support planning for the diversion projects and made the statement,
“The AWSA appears to permit the local communities, state, and region to meet water supply needs without maximizing the new depletion of water from the Gila and San Francisco Rivers. I am concerned about the impact that maximizing depletions will have on the river system. Going forward, I believe that a range of alternatives should be studied, with the “no diversion” option as an essential part of the analysis. To initiate the studies, I have allocated $300,000 to the GSFCC and expect the committee to consult with other interested parties in setting priorities.”
Governor Richardson expanded his policy statement in June of 2008 that included,
“The planning process must include inquiries on a range of topic areas already identified by the planning group, including:
• Needs assessment of regional water supply and demand
• Multi-stakeholder planning process including administration and public involvement
• Demand management/conservation
• Demographics
• Economics/Social
• Ecologic studies
• Hydrologic studies including characterization of surface and groundwater supplies within the four-county area considering drought and climate change.”
The Governor’s order and policy launched four years of over 200 studies and countless meetings exhausting millions of dollars of federal, state and local government funds. This satisfied the opponents’ primary objective of delaying a diversion project. Recently opponents point to all of the money spent on these studies, engineers and lawyers assigning the blame to the New Mexico CAP Entity that was yet to be created.
As a result of the opponents prompted studies and meetings the Commission made recommendations for water conservation projects that the ISC funded at $9.1 million. Under Governor Martinez the ISC moved to devote the remainder of the Fund and the maximum of $62 million construction funding to developing diversion and storage projects.
NM Legislative Actions
Representative Rudy Martinez introduced HB 301 in 2011 creating the New Mexico Unit Fund. The bill passed both the House and Senate on unanimous votes and was signed into law by the newly elected Governor Martinez.
Opponents continued their relentless attacks on the ISC and proponents of acquiring the new water for the region. The press and media eagerly regurgitated invented exaggerated stories of billion-dollar boondoggle and impacts to the Gila Wilderness, and the last wild and free flowing river in the state.
This same scaremongering was repeated to federal and state legislators. In 2016 and 2017, Senator Morales attempted to raid the Fund to finance the Grant County Regional Water Supply Project.
In this 2018 session Senator Morales and Representative Martinez sponsored respectively SB 72 and HB 127 to gut the New Mexico Unit fund and effectively put an end to New Mexico’s sixty three-year efforts to secure lost water for the southwestern region of the state.
Senator Morales’ bill passed the Senate Conservation Committee and wasn’t acted on by the Senate Finance Committee. Representative Martinez’s bill was tabled in the House Agriculture and Water Resources Committee. A dummy bill resurrected Martinez’s bill as HB 330 that passed from the House State Government, Indian & Veterans Affairs Committee and was tabled in the House Appropriations & Finance Committee after bi-partisan opposition threatened lengthy and heated debate.
Editor's Note: The NM Central Arizona Project Entity has worked for the past couple of years, since its founding, to develop a proposed action. Below is a summary of the current amended proposed action, as of March 2018.
The New Mexico CAP Entity (“Entity”), on October 30, 2017, chose in an open public meeting the diversion, conveyance and storage alternatives as its amended proposed action. The amended proposed action includes project components in three areas-the Upper Gila Valley, along the San Francisco river and in the Virden Valley. Diversion structures in the Upper Gila and San Francisco, conveyance (ditch) improvements in all three identified areas including a portion of lined ditches, construction of 6 on/off farm storage ponds in Upper Gila and 2 in Virden totaling approximately 3,500 acre-feet, and construction of a reservoir in a side canyon of the San Francisco with an estimated 1,800 acre-feet of storage (proposed funding outside of construction fund). In addition, five conventional well systems (total capacity of 4,000 acre-feet of delivery) are also being proposed in the Upper Gila Valley to provide alternative methods of irrigation such as sprinkler or drip irrigation for maximum efficiency while also providing for aquifer storage and recovery.
These components provide opportunity for an increase in agriculture production as well as an increase in efficiency of the existing system. Current proposed project components were approved with an attempt to keep costs within the constraints of the appropriation from the Lower Colorado River Basin Development Fund (Construction Fund) identified solely for the purpose of funding the construction of the New Mexico Unit. The total estimated cost for the NM Unit is $42 million while recent estimated amounts available for construction in the construction fund is between $50-$55 million. If these monies are not used for the purpose of constructing a NM Unit project, they will be forfeited with no ability for future use.