Winter 1998-99 Bulletin

1999 at the New Mexico Legislature

Amigos Bravos will be working the 1999 60-day session of the New Mexico legislature, beginning January 19, to establish the New Mexico Rivers Information System (NMRIS) and track a range of other river-related initiatives. Board members Ross Ulibarrí and Michael Coca have generously volunteered their time to work as part-time lobbyists, and we are looking for other volunteers with experience or interest in the legislative process to fill gaps in the schedule. AmigosBravos has worked on the NMRIS for several years, gaining the support of a broad range of water and river interests and establishing a credible presence in the legislature. Over the last year, with the help of the New Mexico Environment Department and the New Mexico Natural Heritage Program at UNM, we have refined the project into a very solid proposal that we feel it is ready to fly during the upcoming session. The interim Committee on Water and Natural Resources endorsed the proposal in November. Legislation co-sponsored by Senator Carlos Cisneros and five others requests a $150,000 appropriation to the Environment Department to initiate the NMRIS. Most of that money will be used to contract UNM's Natural Heritage Program to do the grunt work of refining the database platform and compiling existing river-related data from government agencies into a single electronic repository. As well as compiling all this information into one place (it now takes visiting at least a half-dozen different government offices to gather the same range of information), the NMRIS is also valuable as a way to foster a more holistic view of rivers as single, integrated entities rather than as a bunch of disconnected "resources." The general public, irrigators, water-planning groups, recreationists, tourists, watershed and environmental groups, and government agencies will all have easy access to this information, complete with optional layers of GIS (Geographic Information System) graphics, via the Internet. Other legislative issues expected to come up this session: Instream flow initiatives, if introduced, are sure to be controversial and unnecessarily divisive at this point in time. "Instream flow," simply put, means allowing rivers to have a legal "right" to water. Acequia interests are understandably concerned that it will be another angle from which to undermine community water rights, already imperiled by the looming threat of transfers to big-money industries and thirsty downstream cities. Acequias, one of the oldest sustainable water-use traditions in New Mexico, formed the basis of the earliest cooperative community government in rural Hispanic communities. At the end of the twentieth century they are thriving and remain integral to local communities and traditional culture. Amigos Bravos takes the position that protecting natural stream flow in rivers and protecting traditional water uses and water rights are not inconsistent, and that the former could in fact benefit the latter. Our longstanding policy is that we will support instream flow initiatives only if and when they address the concerns of acequias, and we will stand by that policy in this legislative session. We will support stream flows for endangered species if they come from municipalities, federal reserve water rights, or water-hoarding industries like Intel or water-rich irrigation and conservancy districts. Water banking initiatives are likely to be introduced this session. While Amigos Bravos agrees with the basic concept of "banking" temporarily unused or conserved water rights, which could then be used to rewater dry sections of river to support endangered species or by water-poor acequias, we do not support the idea of establishing a statewide water bank and a yet another state bureaucracy to administer it. With growing competition from industry and cities for limited water in the state, it becomes more important to keep water and decision making about water in the hands of local communities. Local or watershed-based water banks, on the other hand, will keep the water and some control over water right transfers in the community or watershed. In the modern world of mind-boggling water right transfers, interstate compacts, and pumping water from one side of the continental divide to the other, we forget about the fundamental value of keeping water connected to the land where it belongs. With all this in mind, Amigos Bravos will support local or watershed-based water banking proposals. Beware of attempts by development interests to amend the Subdivision Act, enlarging loopholes and eliminating water protection requirements that subdivisions must currently meet. Along with supporting the initiatives that will benefit our rivers and communities, an unfortunate reality of working the legislature is all the time that we will spend keeping vigil and fighting off the bad bills. Please contact the Amigos Bravos office if you are willing and able to help us work the legislature, if you have legislative concerns we should know about, or if you'd like updates or details on any legislative issues.

Please return to Winter Bulletin 1998-99 Index.