Water Advocates’ FY 26 Special Appropriations Recommendations
The Governor has allowed the Office of the State Engineer and the Interstate Stream Commission to request funding for more staff capacity and competitive salaries but not enough for the agencies to face New Mexico’s climate and water realities. Next fiscal year’s state budget must provide non-recurring funding from rich oil and gas revenues for state agencies to make major headway over the next three years.
The Legislature must augment the funding the Governor has permitted the Office of the State Engineer (OSE) and Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) to request by authorizing funds from rich oil and gas revenues to accelerate work that only the State can do to secure New Mexico’s water future. Implementing three transformative 20th Century water laws and enabling agency programs, including State Engineer water rights enforcement and Bureau of Geology aquifer mapping, requires a large increase in one-time funding. These Water Advocates recommendations focus on addressing neglected but vital initiatives for sustainable water security, emphasizing strategic use of current revenues to protect and manage the state’s water resources for improved water security.
Key Elements of the Water Advocates’ Budget Recommendations
The Governor’s proposed budget includes a $1.2 million in annual funding for the staff capacity required to accelerate the Bureau of Geology Aquifer Mapping Program implementation. The Governor’s request, as presented November 26th, to the legislature’s Water and Natural Resources Committee includes only $30 million of the $175 million in non-recurring funding needed to finish the program in 10 to 12 years. This level of funding is sufficient to organize, design, drill, and equip an initial set of 100 dedicated aquifer research and monitoring wells that the Bureau of Geology says is required to characterize New Mexico’s fresh water and brackish water aquifers.
Water Security Planning Act Implementation. Taking a similar approach, implementation of the 2023 Water Security Planning Act requires state funding for regions to prepare their regional water security plans. The Governor allowed the Interstate Stream Commission to request $0.8 million for new water planning staff positions and $1 million for one-time expenses, with nothing for the regions, even though the law grants the authority and responsibility to the regions to do the planning. ISC’s role is to make good planning possible by providing grants to regions.
Only stingy appropriations to implement this law were in the ISC’s budgets for FY24 and FY25, one of the reasons the ISC progress to date has been insufficient. A $30 million FY26 special appropriation of non-recurring funding would provide for initial grants to regions to prepare proposed work plans for ISC approval, and grants to begin implementing the approved regional work plans, including regional water education and community engagement. Without an appropriation of this magnitude, three years will have elapsed before any funding has been allocated to do the rigorous work of water planning pursuant to the 2023 state law.
- Regional Water Planning Grants: Direct grants to water planning regions to empower local stakeholders to address water security challenges through solutions the regions vet and prioritize in accordance with the 2023 law and forthcoming rule and guidelines.
- Regional Water Planning Data Sets and Water Resources Simulation Models. Funding for the ISC to work with the Water Data Initiative to supply water planning data and models to regions, as required by law.
- Community Engagement and Education: Funding to ensure the public is informed and involved in water management efforts, recognizing that public participation is essential for the success of regional planning initiatives.
Modernization of New Mexico’s water agencies is required to bring their methods and tools into the 21st century. The agencies must develop modern standard operating procedures that utilize modern information technology to increase the speed, quality, and productivity of agencies’ work and workers. Two principal work areas deserve emphasis: Water Data Act Implementation. A $30 million non-recurring special appropriation for use over the next three years is needed.
- OSE’s and ISC’s Directing Agency Roles to Implement the 2019 Water Data Act: Fund the Directing Agencies to fulfill their roles and responsibilities under the 2019 Act. The Bureau of Geology has done an amazing job to organize and provide a framework for implementing the Act but the OSE and ISC are just getting started to clean-up the water data they collect and own and make it available to their staff and to the public, online, for informed decision-making. Transparency and accountability in water resources management require public water data to be accessible and of known quality. Too much agency data are inaccessible to agency staff much less the public and are poor quality. The Office of the State Engineer definitely has a data quality problem, characterized by the phrase, garbage in – garbage out, with no applicable and active quality control measures.
- Modernize OSE Water Use Reporting to provide accurate and timely data for use in water management and planning. The OSE’s most recent water use report is for 2015. The once every five-years report is laboriously complied, relies heavily on methods developed over 50 years ago, and fails to address natural depletions. Basic water use reporting and compilations can and should be automated, freeing scarce human resources to analyze the water use data and give it contextual meaning.
Active Water Resources Management. The Water Advocates emphasize the need for $2 million over three years to enforce Active Water Resources Management (AWRM) in critical areas like the Middle and Lower Rio Grande for Rio Grande Compact compliance purposes. Funding is required to develop:
- District-Specific Rules: Developing regulations to address overuse of 25,000 to 30,000 acre-feet per year in the Middle Rio Grande and 9,000 acre-feet per year overuse in the Lower Rio Grande.
- Water Banking: Establishing mechanisms in the District-Specific Rules so that essential water uses that do not hold sufficient senior water rights can continue in practice and in accordance with law by paying for nonuse by senior water right owners.
- Public Outreach: Engaging communities to build understanding and support for necessary enforcement measures.
- Enforcement: Enforcement also requires a new law in 2025 to make enforcement effective against unlicensed well drillers, illegal wells, overuse and waste, and use without water rights without a resorting to a suing for a District Court injunction. Suing violators to compel compliance is laborious and a poor use of limited agency human resources, and essentially unworkable.
Aquifer Mapping, Research and Monitoring Program. New Mexicans deserve to know how much ground water they have left and how fast is it being depleted. The Bureau of Geology’s Aquifer Mapping Program requires $175 million over 12 years to drill 100 aquifer monitoring wells and $1.25 million for staffing. The Governor’s proposed $30 million over three years is only a fraction of the program’s full funding requirement, leaving a significant gap in this critical initiative that future legislators will have to fill.
The Governor’s Funding Shortcomings
While the Governor’s budget plan generously increases funding for OSE and ISC staff capacity, it is unreasonably limited in addressing the highest priority multi-year projects that New Mexican’s water and economic security require. All the initiatives are foundational to ensuring water security but are unfunded or grossly underfunded. The current approach will delay work that will become more costly and complex, as the time needed increase New Mexico’s water security slips away while the situation worsens without any robust response.
