By Mary Alice Murphy
The third presentation at the Interim Legislative Water and Natural Resources Committee meeting, which was held Monday and Tuesday at the Western New Mexico University J. Cloyd Miller Library, was given by Norm Gaume, P.E., consulting engineer, and Jim Brooks, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, retired, on the Gila Diversion Technical and Financial Concerns.
Gaume said he was the Interstate Stream Director when the Arizona Water Settlements Act was being negotiated. "After I left the position, I at first paid no attention to the Gila Diversion, until 2013 when it became hugely controversial. I think legislative oversight is sorely needed."
"My opinion questions today are more intense and more pointed than during my Interstate Stream Commission presentations," Gaume said.
He presented a history of the failures of New Mexico to create diversions, as allowed in the 1968 Act, through the Hooker Dam and Conner Dam, as well as an alternate storage unit on Mangas Creek. "These, though they were probably feasible, failed, I believe because there was no need for the water, no one wanted to pay for the water and for environmental concerns."
He said, in 2000, Sen. Pete Domenici wanted to know what Gaume wanted for New Mexico. "I said we needed water for infrastructure and resiliency."
Gaume noted that no minutes exist from the negotiations during 2003 and 2004.
"New Mexico has the most junior rights on the Gila River," Gaume said. "The AWSA codified that in the Consumptive Use and Forbearance Agreement, which is 127 pages long."
Gaume said the ISC has spent more than $5 million since 2004 on studies and plans, and "by the end of 2014, frankly, they had reached failure at every point. They sent a notice to the Secretary of the Interior that the state wants to divert, but they don't know what, where or how much. I think it's a clash of values. Frankly, they haven't defined a workable project. We don’t have many facts to disagree on except for the passionate desire to divert and develop."
He noted the CUFA goes into "excruciating" detail on how and when New Mexico can divert. "ISC did a spreadsheet all the way back to 1937 on the daily availability of water." Gaume said he had asked for it, but had not been able to get it, until he "inadvertently" got it.
He also said Los Alamos National Lab had developed a model tool, which remains available, but the "ISC didn't like it."
"I hired Jim Brainerd to study evaporation and seepage in the areas where a project is proposed," Gaume said. "The water will seep out before it will evaporate.
"Reclamation refused to look at seepage until the past few weeks, when they agreed the reservoirs would have to be lined," Gaume said. "My concerns are based on the fact that I have education in this and an interest in the Gila Wilderness and River. It's not my job to give you answers. But there is not a single state of New Mexico report that provides yield or costs and how the financials will work. My calculations are an attempt to fill a professional vacuum of professional staff."
He said the constraints of the CUFA could be rarely satisfied and make the development of the junior water rights extremely expensive. "Seventy-nine percent of legally available water would come from January to April with extended snowmelt. Climate change impacts would be severe, likely rendering the project non-functional." Gaume said the ISC has commissioned a study on climate change. The question is what is its effect on the legal yield on the most junior water right."
In a normal framework, Gaume said, the ISC would do a feasibility study. "Seepage will be ruinous, unless the reservoirs are successfully lined. I calculated, with lining at $3 a square foot, it would cost $57 million for a 450 acre-foot reservoir. To give a firm yield of about 5,000 acre-feet annually would cost approximately $45,000 per acre-foot of capacity, and would benefit only a small number of New Mexico irrigators, who certainly cannot afford to pay for it."
He noted that the costs are more expensive than any other project in New Mexico and "to date there is no definitive study and no answer to questions. The ISC voted to proceed with no idea how to do it."
"Sediment is also a problem in flood stage," Gaume continued. "There is easily 44 acre-feet of sediment conveyed in a flood, but not one has described how the project has gotten rid of the sediment."
He said diversions are only available on 9 percent of the days back to 1937, and the water has no velocity in the fairly flat area. "There are likely engineering fixes, but they are not in the cost estimates."
Gaume noted the ISC had said there is up to 36,000 acre-feet of depletion on the Mimbres Basin annually, but "that is at odds with the Office of the State Engineer's own report. I believe the Mimbres Basin is almost in balance."
He said in his written comments that local governments have refused to date to make any financial commitment. They have said they do not have the financial wherewithal to do so. He said he had calculated the cost of water would exceed $8,000 per acre-foot per year, based on costs in Reclamation's July 2014 Appraisal Report to the ISC.
Gaume said at the meeting that Reclamation had not looked at any financial topic that the ISC had not asked them to review. "In the benefit cost ratios, Reclamation found that based on diversion and storage costs, the yield would be a benefit of 25 cents for every $1 of cost."
He alleged the ISC had decided not to fund any alternatives.
Gaume said water would be available only as "feast or famine. In order to divert, New Mexico has to pay the Secretary of the Interior to deliver the water through the Central Arizona Project into the Gila River below the San Carlos Reservoir. The cost of the exchange is projected to be $196 by 2019."
He said he has also done engineering economics, and he took a financing proposal by G.K. Baum and the annual financial burden of debt service, exchange costs and operations and maintenance would be about $50 million.
The water rate for Deming users would go from $14 a month to $170 a month.
"You should hold the ISC to give you numbers in public that can be transparent," Gaume said. "The New Mexico Unit Fund money is available. Use it for non-diversion alternatives."
Jim Brooks said he spent 29 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and eight years working for Arizona Game and Fish. "I was born and raised in Morenci, Ariz. I have worked on threatened and endangered species."
He said it was important to use the "best available science" to make decisions because it relies on specific processes.
"I am not a representative of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," Brooks emphasized. "I am giving my professional and personal opinion.
"Flow affects everything," he said. "It's a fact. You alter the way the water flows and it sets off cascading effects. What kind of change can you expect when you build a structure on an active floodplain? You can do all sorts of mitigation, but it doesn't belie the changes. There are seven protected species in the Upper Gila. It's a rare reach in biodiversity. The animals are adapted to the system. Changes to habitat can eliminate the native species and encourage invasive non-native species. This quality of ecosystem is not easily seen anywhere else. Any project is obviously a problem. How do you evaluate a project and its impacts? You may receive counter-intuitive results or no or even beneficial effects. There has been no peer review of their studies. Although they say the studies are now undergoing peer review, it should already have been done. Peer review in journals is independent and funded outside the process. The purpose of peer review is to minimize uncertainty."
He went into detail on what is required with peer review.
Gaume said The Nature Conservancy Flow Needs Assessment had some peer review, but needed more. He noted that the draft report, from a workshop the ISC participated in, showed huge potential for impact to endangered species.
"What's next?" Gaume asked and answered. "For NEPA, Reclamation has assured me there will be peer review. The co-lead is the ISC. Once NEPA is done, Reclamation will provide the report to the USFWS for Endangered Species Act compliance. A successful diversion is unlikely in my opinion.
"But what happens if a diversion and unit are built?" he asked. "Environmental changes will occur, which I think will require recovery programs. It is not a sure thing that impacts can be mitigated. Don't change course to something we can't get back from."
Rep. Randal S. Crowder said that in the presentation they had said the river is in harmony.
"From a biodiversity standpoint, it's one of the best," Brooks said.
"If there are already 11 diversions, what will the 12th do?" Crowder asked. "One more and we will have a train wreck?"
"The biodiversity is special," Brooks reiterated. "Effects are cumulative."
Crowder said he was troubled that none of the canyons would hold water. "Is Bill Evans Lake lined?"
Gaume said the lake is built in a different kind of rock. "I think it's rhyolite. The proposed reservoirs overlie the Gila Conglomerate, which is very porous."
Crowder asked why Phelps Dodge had found the only place to build a reservoir. "I feel like the ISC is villanized in this presentation."
Sen. Joseph Cervantes asked who the benefactors of this diversion would be.
"At a reliable level, we don't know," Gaume said. "They have devised three phases. The first phase would not go out of the valley and the only possible beneficiaries are the irrigators. Freeport McMoRan owns 73 percent of the water rights in the valley. If the water goes over the divide, the small colonias in the Mining District to Deming will benefit, but there is no treatment plant in the plan."
In answer to a further question, Gaume said he was not aware of anyone committing money beyond the federal money.
"The state has an investment of $5 million to the ISC for studies," Cervantes said.
Gaume noted that the ISC has the authority to appropriate everything in the New Mexico Unit Fund. "I have heard the environmental compliance could cost $20 million to $30 million."
Cervantes said he believed the $5 million was illegally awarded to consultants through the ISC without public knowledge or process. He asked Brooks to expand on his idea of cumulative damage with a unit.
"It piles on," Brooks said. "Once they have a specific project, they will study it. I can't answer that except it will have more impact on the existing degradation. Most of these diversion structures don't block fish movement. This structure would fragment fish movement."
"Why do farmers and ranchers need more water?" Cervantes asked.
"I think farmers would always like more water," Gaume said. "Maybe they need it, but junior water rights won't be available in a drought. I believe there is no pressing need for more water."
Rep. Bill McCamley asked what the differences were between the current 11 diversions and the proposed 12th.
"As you go downstream from where the 12th diversion is planned, you don't have the biodiversity," Brooks said. "They push up their earthen dams with bulldozers. They don't provide river blockage. As I understand it, the 12th will be a permanent structure."
"If it's not a dam, what is it?" McCamley asked.
Gaume said the ISC is fully aware that a structure over the river would be problematic, so "they insisted on a partial structure. In my opinion, in a flood the water would go around the structure. In this type of floodplain, the structure has to go across."
McCamley asked if this diversion would be the first diversion coming out of the river, to which Gaume said the Campbells have a partial diversion near the Cliff Dwellings.
Rep. Jeff Steinborn asked how much water could be expected, what makes the diversion different and what is the value of wildness to "our society, our culture, our economy?"
"I am strongly opposed," Steinborn said.
Sen. Benny Shendo said because the area is fairly flat, he figured a diversion would have to go all the way across. He asked if there were any natural storage in the tributaries coming into the Gila or if through watershed restoration, it would keep water in the ground to feed the river.
"One important factor is that the Whitewater-Baldy and Silver fires have changed the systems," Brooks noted.
"In early 2014, the ISC gathered nine independent watershed restoration experts and asked them whether watershed restoration would provide a water supply demand," Craig Roepke, ISC project manager said, after being invited to answer questions. "Some said no or maybe at first, but it could lead to less water yield. Others said if it were done exactly right, there might be long-term results, but you can't really tell. The staff recommended to study watershed restoration long-term, so we have supported The Nature Conservancy, but the AWSA has not allocated any funding to the study."
Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino asked how, if the entity pays for the water first, do they know how much will be available.
"Nobody said it was a good deal," Gaume said. "It's a water bank. Water can only be diverted after it is pre-banked up to the limit paid for and delivered."
Ortiz y Pino asked if the entity had paid for the water at $157 an acre-foot, but didn't take it until it cost $161 an acre-foot, would they have to pay more.
"I think it's still there to offset future diversions," Gaume said. "The confusion is that there are no maps where the diversions are and where the locations are. The diversion area is in a wild river."