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Opportunity Costs
The Governor has allowed water agencies to request badly needed staff capacity improvements but has not provided for the one-time expenses needed to implement the laws and a vastly improved knowledge of New Mexico’s groundwater, recognizing New Mexico is more dependent on groundwater than any other state. The New Mexico Water Advocates’ respectfully and…
Read MoreA Vision for New Mexico’s Water Future
What becomes possible when our agencies are well-funded, our water security laws are fully implemented, and we all work together?
Read MoreWater Security Agenda
Now is the time to build on these foundation of good water law already on the books. Fully funding the implementation of key legislation—is crucial for securing our water future. These acts provide a framework for addressing critical water challenges, yet their full potential can only be realized if state water agencies have the capacity to fully implement them. Here are the essential elements of our water security agenda emphasizing the urgent need for accelerated progress.
Read MoreSolutions
While New Mexico’s water situation is dire, there are viable solutions to our water challenges. Growing public awareness, hard-working and innovative state agency staff, and fledgling official actions point to the adaptation we need in the face of much less water resulting from our hotter climate. While productive steps are being taken, far more must be done. Significant funding is needed to accelerate the state government fulfilling its water management and governance roles.
Read MoreOur Water Crisis
Water is the lifeblood of New Mexico’s economy and communities, yet we face a growing crisis of scarcity driven by overuse and climate change. The stark reality is this: our current path leads to a future where water resources are severely depleted, jeopardizing our environment, economy, and way of life. New Mexico’s economic well-being critically depends on having sufficient water. Without water security, we have no economic security. We are already in one of the driest periods in the last millennium. Due to climate change, New Mexico’s best scientists project an average of 25% less streamflow and groundwater recharge within the next 50 years. Already, Rio Grande streamflow under the bridge to Los Alamos (at the Otowi Gage) has dropped 25% since 1988. With increased pumping caused by drought, a decrease in groundwater levels are accelerating across most of the state, to the point of complete depletion. Ongoing overuse, exacerbated by climate change, is a crisis that New Mexico is not facing up to.
Read MoreRainwater Catchment: a Path Back to Traditional Farming
The recently articulated vision of the Honoring Water Group, an informal citizen’s group meeting at Zuni, Vanderwagen and Gallup is: “Abundant water, respected and treated ethically. When water is honored as sacred, mutual flourishing is possible.” This citizen’s group, with much organizational support from James and Joyce Skeet of Vanderwagen, seeks to honor and protect water in…
Read MoreFrom Portales, NM – “If Only I had Known”
If I had only known! How many times have you said that in your life? Grab some caffeine and join me for a tour of our possible water future. Do you remember that time when you meant to go see someone but something came up, only to get a call that something had happened to…
Read MoreStaring into New Mexico’s Water Supply Abyss
Water managers along the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) and across New Mexico increasingly feel as if they are staring into an abyss of water shortages for increasing numbers of users who depend on water supplies for drinking, for economic growth, and even for the survival of our present-day economy. The reliable supply of NM’s surface…
Read MoreNM Court Stops Augustin Plains Ranch Water Grab
At a momentous hearing on April 5, 2024, more than 100 community members from Catron County crowded the court room and hallways of the Seventh Judicial District court in Reserve to hear oral argument on the Augustin Plains Ranch LLC’s continuing and relentless requests to mine and hoard 54,000 acre-feet of water a year from…
Read MoreState Engineer’s Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force Report
New Mexico enters 2023 in a water crisis. But with unprecedented peril comes unprecedented opportunity.
To address that challenge, and those opportunities, a diverse task force of stakeholders from across New Mexico came together from June to November 2022, studying the problems and coming to broad, shared conclusions: our challenges are dire, but there are things we can do if we act now.
