During the “Year of Water” 2007 legislative session, advocates won passage of an important Environment New Mexico-backed memorial (HJM42), and came just short of passage on an identical joint memorial, both sponsored by Rep. Mimi Stewart (Albuquerque).
“This is a much needed first step in making New Mexico water law more effective,” said Lauren Ketcham, an advocate with Environment New Mexico. “Pulling together a diverse group of stakeholders will not only create a helpful dialogue, but hopefully result in meaningful, workable legislation to address some of the problems identified this session.”
The House memorial directs the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer to create a stakeholder process, including representatives from agriculture, nonprofits and local and tribal governments to make recommendations for improving local water development planning. The State Engineer will report on the recommendations to the Water and Natural Resources Interim Committee in August 2007.
“It’s been 20 years since the water planning statute has been updated and this memorial provides an excellent opportunity to see what improvements can be made. Anytime you can put all the stakeholders in a room together to talk about water, it’s a good thing for the state of New Mexico. We need to make sure we properly manage our water resources to result in the most good for the most people,” said Rep. Stewart.
Under current statute, municipalities, counties, school districts, state universities, member-owned community water systems and special water users associations are able to acquire and hold unused water rights for a forty-year period, provided that they can show reasonable need through a water development plan submitted to the State Engineer.
The stakeholders and the State Engineer will explore options for making the water development plans already submitted by the local planning entities more useful and meaningful, whether additional entities should be included and whether changing the 40 year planning horizon is appropriate.
Environment New Mexico supports outlining specific criteria that must be included in the water development plans, requiring that the plans be updated regularly, be approved by the appropriate governing body and be made available to the public.
House Joint Memorial 48, which had passed through the House and unanimously through two Senate Committees, ran out of time on the Senate Floor and was unheard before the Saturday March 17 noon end of session deadline.
“I look forward to working closely with the stakeholders. Having a dialogue like this is important for understanding other water users and their needs and for determining the best way to address New Mexico’s water problems in the future,” said Ketcham.
