By Mary Alice Murphy

[Editor's Note: This article is written from knowledge this writer has, as well as from comments and a presentation made by the Gila Valley Floods Disaster Task Force to Freeport-McMoran. This article includes a lot of history which led up to the donation.]

Residents of the Gila Valley set up a Gila Valley Flood Task Force soon after the Aug. 21-22, 2022 extreme flooding that destroyed irrigation infrastructure for three irrigation associations—Fort West, Gila Farm and Upper Gila, all members of the Gila Basin Irrigation Commission under a joint powers agreement.

Destre Shelley, Autumn Bruton and David Ogilvie began reaching out to the county, the state and federal government for help in getting funding to repair the ditches.

On Aug. 23, 2022, the Grant County Commission approved an emergency declaration, which made the ditches eligible to receive governmental funding.

On Sept. 7, 2022, the state declared an emergency, and "promised" $750,000 via the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which has yet to arrive.

Not only acequias were washed away, but so was the bridge on US 180 that connected the residents of the Gila Valley to Silver City. The New Mexico Department of Transportation jumped into action and repaired the bridge embankments, which had washed away from the bridge structure, but it did take several days of around-the-clock labor.

Freeport-McMoran Copper and Gold Inc., which has two mines in Grant County, made available a private road, usually blocked off for company use only, as an emergency access road from Silver City to residents in the Gila Valley. Otherwise, valley residents who had to travel to Silver City had a 200-mile detour. That was the first example of the community service Freeport offered to Grant County in this emergency. This article will address the next help they provided.

Soon after the flood, legislative representatives, Sen. Siah Hemphill and Rep. Luis Terrazas toured the area to see the damage. Also joining them was Southwest Council of Governments Executive Director Priscilla Lucero. County Emergency Manager Justin Gojkovich also toured the damaged areas. He began contacting state and federal entities to try to obtain financial help for the irrigation associations to repair their infrastructure.

The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission came out to assess damages on Sept. 7, 2022, and estimated not only restoration to pre-flood condition, but estimates for changing existing structures at an assessment of $525,000 to more than $1 million.

On Sept. 26, 2022, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) sent a representative to assess the damage. The extremely low estimate made it immediately not eligible for federal funding, which has a much higher threshold.

Despite all the contacts made, aid has been slow in coming to help the irrigators.

A major financial barrier for funding has been the fact that any state funding allocated to repairs of the ditches is reimbursable only. Not only that, but requirements for the funding stipulate that it can be used ONLY for repairs back to pre-flood status, so NO improvements are allowed. Reimbursements can take eight months to a year to arrive in the spender's coffers.

That means the money must be expended up front and then requests must follow for reimbursement. With anticipated costs to do minimum repairs in the vicinity of up to $150,000, no ditch association has that kind of funding available, nor collateral to get a loan. The funding also requires a cost share of 25 percent, and in-kind work cannot exceed 25 percent of the cost.

In November 2022, the New Mexico Department of Transportation came out to view the damage and said it could help with debris and sediment removal.

That seemed a bright spot, until the continuing barriers to financial aid continued, with the "oh, we don't have the funding approved yet by the governor," among the first of the excuses as they multiplied.

Irrigation season in the Gila Valley begins March 1, so that fields can be prepared for planting.

Even up to this date in February, no water is in the Upper Gila or Gila Farm acequias to water livestock, much less irrigate. Water, for these many months, has had to be manually transported to water livestock.

The task force with the aid of Lucero helped all three acequias create ICIPs (infrastructure capital improvement plans) to request legislative capital outlay during the on-going 60-day legislative session.

The good news is that recently the ISC has approved $500,000 for short-term repairs to acequias all over the state of New Mexico. Exacerbating the local issue is that the Gila and Mimbres river valleys are only part of the extreme flooding damage that happened all over the state during last year's plentiful monsoon.

But help arrived for the Gila Valley on Jan. 20, 2023, after the task force members as their "Last Ditch effort…No pun intended" decided to go to Freeport to beg for funding.

On Feb. 8 (less than three weeks later), a check for $100,000 was awarded to be sent to Grant County, as the pass-through to the Gila Basin Irrigation Commission to distribute to the acequias for repairs.

More aid arrived at a special meeting of the Grant County Commission this week (Feb. 9), when County Manager Charlene Webb announced that the county would put $600,000 toward repairs in the hope of getting reimbursed. The simple applications were made available that day and do require a simple reporting of the use of the funds.

The flooding on the Gila and Mimbres rivers resulted directly from water flowing rapidly off the Black Fire burn scar that occurred in early summer 2022. The Black Fire was the second largest in the state's history. However, the Calf/Hermit's Peak Fire in the northern part of the state was the largest in the state's history, also occurring last summer. Many acequias downstream from that fire also suffered great damage and are also in line to get state emergency funding.

[Author's question: Why does it take months and years to get state funding that comes from state resident taxpayers to be allocated and delivered in an emergency situation within the state, while an international corporation can turn around $100,000 in less than three weeks?]

[Editor's Note: If you wonder why, you might check out a couple of recent articles. The first an editorial with blatant opinion at https://www.grantcountybeat.com/editorials/editorial/76765-what-an-eye-opening-workshop and the first of three articles on that "workshop" at
https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/76794-new-mexico-acequia-disaster-recovery-workshop-022223, with more articles to follow.]