English Archives - Main Stream New Mexico

Compacts Benefit and Bind Us

katMainstreamadmin — Wed, 13 May 2026 15:23:53 +0000

Compacts Benefit and Bind Us

Balancing Interstate Water Obligations in Times of Drought

May / 2026

Before 1878, when the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad started steaming its way through southwest Colorado’s San Luis Valley, sagebrush and stands of native grasses dotted the landscape. Native Peoples and Spanish settlers used hand-dug diversion ditches to reroute just enough stream water to grow their crops.

Then came the train — and the ambitious settlers who arrived along with it. Within 15 years, the landscape had transformed. Fields flushed green with water diverted from the mighty Rio Grande through much larger engineered canals. By 1892, 400,000 acres in Colorado’s San Luis Valley were under irrigation, consuming two-thirds of the Rio Grande’s flow into the valley. One policymaker called it “bonanza farming.”

The unfettered growth eventually left downstream irrigators in New Mexico in dire straits, struggling to grow their crops with sedimented water and unpredictable river flows — signs of a water system in crisis.

In the arid Wild West, growth in one valley could mean devastation in the next. It wasn’t until the 20th century — with the advent of interstate water compacts and other policies governing this scarce resource — that these latest settlers of the high desert started to share what they had.

Despite the lessons of yesteryear, we are still onboarding this wisdom.

Rolf Schmidt-Petersen, New Mexico’s current commissioner for the Canadian River Compact and the former director of the Interstate Stream Commission, built his career on helping New Mexico and its neighbors find a balance through its interstate compacts. And yet, he says, one of the most frequently asked questions he hears from farmers, lawmakers, and even water professionals is why a state would agree to limit its own water use in order to share with downstream states.

“People say, ‘Why would you ever do that?’” Schmidt-Petersen says. “But compacts provide both constraints and opportunities. By spreading the water out, you’re able to maintain your values and your local economy all the way down through the system, as opposed to saying one state’s going to take it all and the rest gets nothing.”

“By spreading the water out, you’re able to maintain your values and your local economy all the way down through the system, as opposed to saying one state’s going to take it all and the rest gets nothing.”

‘Eight different ways to play’

All interstate compacts both benefit and bind us, but for the most part, the similarities end there. New Mexico is party to eight different interstate agreements, and Schmidt-Petersen says they’re so different that it’s like “coming up with golf rules, but you've decided to have eight different ways to play.”

The Canadian River Compact in northeastern New Mexico, for example, is a comparatively simple system in which New Mexico stores a certain amount of water in Ute Reservoir and sends the rest downriver toward Texas. The Rio Grande Compact, on the other hand, requires upstream states to make deliveries to their neighbors based on gauge readings at specific points along the river. A system of debits and credits helps balance out deliveries in the aftermath of a wet or dry year. A separate treaty with Mexico dictates how much Rio Grande water belongs to our neighbors south of the border.

But lately, amid what scientists describe as the driest period in the American West in over 1,000 years, upstream states can struggle to meet downstream obligations. Tensions rise, and it’s harder for everyone to share this precious resource. (In Texas v. New Mexico, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a proposed resolution to a related case that concerns the impact on surface water of New Mexico’s pumping of groundwater.)

“The piece that’s potentially flawed is, when you put a compact in place, how do you plan for various different futures?” says Schmidt-Petersen.

Both the Rio Grande and Colorado compacts considered river flows from the early 1900s to determine compact terms, and the original authors “kicked the can down the road” on some difficult issues, including clearly defining what happens when flows change dramatically, he says.

Shared values and compromise

Even so, Schmidt-Petersen sees compacts as the best way for states to protect their water interests. Without them, resolutions to disputes could be out of our hands.

“If New Mexico didn't have these interstate stream compacts, in all likelihood we would have either Congress or court decrees from the U.S. Supreme Court telling us what we can use and how much,” he says. “And it may not be within our control. Being in compliance gives us options to do the things that we would like to do.”

When New Mexico’s regional planners begin the important work of prioritizing projects for their region, they’ll first have to consider our obligations to other states. Schmidt-Petersen’s advice? Start with values — and expect to compromise.

“Because of the long-term drought, nobody has all the water they want for most of the things they want to do. Water users are struggling with a lack of water in all parts of the basins,” he says. “You’re going to have to say, as a region, if we want to develop something new, how are we going to work together to reduce our use somewhere else?”

It may be hard to hear, but Schmidt-Petersen says it’s that spirit of collaboration and compromise — begun (at least in modern times) all those years ago on the rivers of the West — that will help us continue life in an increasingly aridified landscape.

The post Compacts Benefit and Bind Us appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

Making Tribal Water Rights Right

katMainstreamadmin — Mon, 04 May 2026 17:14:50 +0000

Making Tribal Water Rights Right

The history and urgency of Indian water rights settlements

May / 2026

In a few years, a final pipe will be laid, a tap will open, and one of the longest-running court cases in the history of the United States will, at long last, come to a close.

It’s been 60 years since the start of State of New Mexico v. Aamodt, et al, an Indian water-rights adjudication case that legally quantified water rights — including the rights of acequia parciantes, well owners, Tribal entities, farmers, municipalities, and corporations — in northern New Mexico’s Pojoaque Valley. Decades of litigation, heated negotiations, sensitive cultural conversations, false starts, and, ultimately, progress, are culminating in resolution.

But for anyone familiar with Indian water rights settlements in the western United States, the Aamodt case is not unusual. It’s one of many critically important — albeit challenging and lengthy — legal proceedings that are helping Western states and their sovereign neighbors settle Tribal water rights and plan for a drier future, together.

“These settlements are crucial,” said Nicole Greenspan, the lead attorney handling Indian water rights cases for the Office of the State Engineer. They allow us to get everybody to the table who’s involved in any water use in the system and make sure that we come up with a plan that works for Tribal and non-Tribal people. It protects everybody.”

“They allow us to get everybody to the table who’s involved in any water use in the system and make sure that we come up with a plan that works for Tribal and non-Tribal people. It protects everybody.”

‘The first stewards of the river’

Many of these cases, including Aamodt, date to the 1960’s and ’70s, but understanding them requires a bit of background in the (fascinating and complex) history of Western water law.

Beginning in the mid-19th century, U.S. courts established the legal principle of prior appropriation, or “first in time, first in right.” The idea is simple: Whoever diverts water first and puts it to a “beneficial use,” like domestic consumption, crop irrigation, or gold mining, has the most senior right. Everyone else queues up from there. Today, prior appropriation governs water-rights disputes throughout the arid West.

And in New Mexico, there’s no question who’s at the front of the line.

Native American Tribes have inhabited New Mexico for far longer than anyone else. The ancestors of today’s Puebloans diverted water from the Rio Grande to nurture their crops and sustain their families. In legal terms, the priority of Pueblo water rights based on this first-in-time use is referred to as “time immemorial.”

“They are the first stewards of the river,” Greenspan said.

‘Can we just finish this before I die?’

But in the absence of an adjudication, it’s hard to know exactly how much water each Tribe has a right to, and from where. This makes administration of water rights by priority extremely challenging and creates uncertainty for more junior users, like acequias, municipalities, domestic well owners, industry, and others. That’s where Indian water rights adjudications like Aamodt come in.

Since the early 20th century, New Mexico law has required the Office of the State Engineer to adjudicate every water basin and stream system in the state. The process is complex and tedious, involving Tribal, state, and federal governments; negotiations with, in some cases, thousands of water rights holders; and often contentious cultural conversations.

Hence, the lengthy court cases.

And yet, in recent years, the Office of the State Engineer has made a flurry of progress in resolving Tribal water claims that had been pending for decades. Since 2022, five Tribal water rights settlements have been signed and await Congressional approval in Washington, D.C. That’s more than the four settlements that had been completed in the decades up to that point.

Greenspan said progress is, in part, thanks to stakeholders’ understanding that establishing clear boundaries for water use is of the utmost importance as we weather the worst drought on record and head into a future that promises to be even drier.

“It does get contentious, and there are cultural battles all the time,” Greenspan said. “These things are very layered and very difficult, but a lot of the water rights holders, at the end of the day, grew up together, you know? They went to school together, their families overlap, and they live within the same communities and share the same resources. And everybody's goal at the end of the day is the health of the river and the health of the system.”

And because it’s such a lengthy legal and political undertaking, most stakeholders are eager to bring these cases across the finish line.

“We've had a couple of people over the years say, ‘Can we just finish this before I die?’” Greenspan said.”

What comes next

Contentious and prolonged though these cases may be, so far rightsholders have been able to reach accords in the vast majority of cases. For New Mexico’s Pueblos, Tribes, and Nations, in most cases, that has meant significant give-and-take.

As the senior rightsholders, they are relatively well-protected in times of drought (on paper, at least, if not always in practice). But in most settlements, the State of New Mexico has negotiated the waiver of Tribal entities’ right to a priority call. In other words, in the driest years, they have agreed not to assert seniority, which would deny junior rightsholders access to water. The goal is to share what we have, and the settlements reflect that value.

In exchange for this concession, state, local, and federal governments have agreed to funnel funds to Tribal and non-Tribal entities for the development of vital water-infrastructure projects — which brings us back to Aamodt.

Congress approved the settlement in 2010, awarding the plaintiffs in the Pojoaque Valley case, including the Pueblos of Nambé, Tesuque, Pojoaque, and San Ildefonso, $250 million in infrastructure funds. With that money, they developed the Pojoaque Valley Regional Water System, a network of pipes and valves that brings in much-needed water from the Rio Grande and helps reduce the region’s reliance on groundwater. Implementing this system is the final step in the Aamodt case, and it’s set to be completed in 2029.

For Greenspan and her team at OSE, work on the remaining cases is likely to continue well into the next decade. Despite the state’s progress in adjudicating Tribal water rights, much remains to be done, including the adjudication of the middle Rio Grande basin, which comprises the Albuquerque metropolitan area and land belonging to six Pueblos.

Greenspan hopes the case can be completed in 10 years but acknowledges that would be “quick” in comparison, especially since no state in the country has yet to adjudicate the rights of six Tribal nations at the same time. Still, she knows her team has stakeholder sentiment on her side.

“We have a team that’s super motivated to do it, and our leadership is really supportive,” Greenspan said. “It benefits all of us to have water rights that are quantified and enforceable, and to be able to plan with a little bit more certainty.”

The post Making Tribal Water Rights Right appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

Off the Shelf

katMainstreamadmin — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:08:45 +0000

Off the Shelf

Next steps in water planning in New Mexico

Apr / 2026

For decades, regional water plans in New Mexico often ended up as binders on a shelf — carefully written, rarely referenced.

But in a state where water is quickly dwindling, it’s more important than ever to turn abstract plans into action. So now, a small team at the Interstate Stream Commission is reenvisioning the planning process for a drought-resilient future, reshaping it from a one-time task into an ongoing, community-driven system.

This work began with the passage of the Water Security Planning Act in 2023 and continues today. Here’s an update on where we’re at in the process — and what New Mexicans can expect when regional councils begin their work.

‘That flexibility is really important now’

The framework that will guide ISC’s support for regional planning councils is beginning to fall into place. In February 2026, the Interstate Stream Commission adopted the formal rule that will govern the process. One major step remains: the adoption of detailed guidelines that outline how councils will actually be formed and how planning will proceed on the ground.

Those guidelines, which are designed to be flexible enough to adapt to regions’ needs, are already in development and are expected to go through a round of public input before being finalized by the commission.

“They’re really meant to adapt to the process,” says Sara Fox, senior water planner at ISC. “Building in that flexibility is really important now. Climate change is moving quicker than we can keep up with our own laws and goals.”

From there, each region will enter what Fox calls the “initial planning period,” a roughly two-year phase focused on forming councils, gathering input, and producing a first regional water plan. NMISC will stagger the nine regions’ start times, supporting three regions at a time over a period of six years. After initial planning, regions will go into an “ongoing planning period” where they’ll put the plan into action, developing, funding, and implementing the projects, programs, and policies each region has prioritized for a sustainable water future.

Afterward, the process will repeat itself each decade, giving stakeholders a chance to take stock of progress and re-focus priorities. In other words, the process doesn’t end with the first plan—it’s designed to continue indefinitely, to be a “living document,” Fox says.

“We’re trying to look at these in a new light,” she says. “We want these plans to be documents that people visit and look at and learn from and utilize.”

Top down, bottom up

Regional water planning isn’t new to New Mexico. In fact, the Land of Enchantment was the first Western state to pass such a statute in 1987. But ISC Planning staff say the current iteration is fundamentally different in a few key ways.

Earlier planning efforts either relied heavily on grassroots participation with limited support from the state (a bottom-up approach) or centered on prescriptions from on high (a top-down approach).

The new framework aims to strike a balance by requiring representation from key groups while still allowing flexibility in who fills those roles.

The goal, Fox says, is to “set a bigger table,” ensuring that not just the usual voices are present. The approved rule engages more stakeholders — representatives from each region’s municipalities, conservancy districts, county governments, irrigation districts, Pueblos, Tribes, and Nations, soil & water conservation districts, acequias, active land grants, flood control authorities, and regional water utility authorities — better-positioning projects to move forward.

The state is also shifting to a more active support role. Though this section of the initiative has yet to receive state funding, the WSPA calls for hiring regional water planners to assist and support regional councils throughout the state. These yet-to-be-funded full-time ISC staff members would help coordinate meetings, maintain continuity, and find ways to push projects, programs, and policies forward in each region.

Balancing state and local needs

Even as regional planning takes center stage, it won’t operate in isolation.

State water planning plays a different—but complementary—role. While regional efforts look inward, focusing on local needs and priorities, state planning looks outward, addressing issues that span regional boundaries or involve external obligations.

That includes interstate water compacts, endangered species requirements, and Indian water rights settlements—what the planning team describes as “The Big 3” — all of which shape how much water is available and how it can be used across the state on a larger scale.

“We’re trying to make sure New Mexico continues to be a great neighbor, and that we keep those relationships positive,” said Anne Ruthstrom, the senior water planner who leads state water planning at ISC. “You know, it's becoming a very, very tight water scene. I think for New Mexicans and our neighbors, we’re all starting to see and feel the impacts of that.”

Historically, regional plans were often rolled up into a single statewide plan that simply summarized what was already published. But that approach didn’t always reflect the large-scale issues or diversity of conditions — geologic, cultural, political — across New Mexico, where water challenges can vary dramatically from one region to another.

The new approach is less about consolidation and more about coordination.

“I really think it’s important for us to think locally when we’re thinking about how to solve our water problems,” Fox says. “But that cannot be completely separate from these larger external forces.”

That balance reflects a broader reality: New Mexico’s water future depends both on what happens within its communities and on forces beyond its borders. And it will take all of us coming together to find a balance.

“That’s how the process works, right?” Ruthstrom says. “You don't get meaningful outcomes without being involved. And we are all neighbors. That’s not changing anytime soon. So we should work within the framework we have, and work to improve it if we need to.”

The post Off the Shelf appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

Measuring Up New Mexico’s Aquifers

katMainstreamadmin — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:13:47 +0000

Measuring Up New Mexico’s Aquifers

A closer look with Katie Zemlick, OSE Hydrology Bureau Chief

Mar / 2026

Beneath New Mexico’s landscapes is a hidden anatomy of sediment and rock that governs how we live on the surface. New Mexico’s 39 groundwater basins — natural containers that house our aquifers — are crucial sources of water for most of New Mexico’s population. Over half of the water New Mexicans consume annually comes from these underground sources. Yet, there is little known about our aquifers or how long they will last.

Part of the challenge is our landscape’s geologic complexity. The other challenge is that aquifers vary widely based on the complex — and unseen — rock and sediment structures that compose them. Some, like the aquifer beneath Albuquerque, sit near the surface and are connected closely with surface water systems. These aquifers replenish at a faster rate. Others are more isolated, refilling so slowly that the water we draw today may have fallen as rain before human history.

“We know we get very minimal recharge into some aquifers, so what you’re doing in effect is mining them,” says Katie Zemlick, Hydrology Bureau Chief for the Office of the State Engineer. “If you think about mining water the same way you would think about a coal mine, at some point there’s no resource left.” Overmining not only depletes water volume, it can also collapse aquifers or separate previously connected systems by creating dried-out, unsaturated zones of soil and rock.

Already in New Mexico, communities are feeling the impact of overmined aquifers. Some parts of the multi-state Ogallala Aquifer, for example, which underlies cities like Portales and Clovis in eastern New Mexico, have lost 60% of their water volume.

“We need accurate mapping of formations, and we need to know aquifer properties and how aquifers are connected to each other to try and get a sense for how much water is available,” Zemlick says. “We don’t have that.” At least not yet.

Building ‘a detailed picture’

As regional water planning gets underway, and as scientists predict 25% less water in our state over the next 50 years, increased aquifer monitoring is a move that experts like Zemlick say will help prepare the state for a parched future. “It would be huge,” Zemlick says. “We could actually have a conversation about how much water is left and come up with an approach toward sustainability.”

Zemlick began her hydrology career at Sandia National Laboratories, culling water data and analyzing Western states’ water policies with the Water Data Exchange (WaDE). The spirit of that work continues today with the New Mexico Water Data Initiative, the state’s online hub that consolidates data from disparate sources across the state to provide the fullest picture yet of how much water we have, its quality, and how we use it.

But when it comes to groundwater, that picture is still unclear. Zemlick said much of the state’s existing data comes from observations made by commercial and residential well drillers.

“As the material is coming up at different depths, they log what the rock color looks like,” she said. “That, I would say, is 99% of the data we have. The other 1% comes from actual geologists going out into the field, drilling, taking measurements with instruments, sending downhole cameras in. You can really get a detailed picture of what’s happening.”

Optimism in dire times

The governor’s 50 Year Water Action Plan calls for lawmakers to fully fund a Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources program that aims to drill 100 new dedicated monitoring wells and to fully characterize the state’s aquifers by 2032. The additional wells will allow hydrologists and geologists to answer key questions about the state’s underground water.

How porous is the aquifer? What percentage of it holds water versus sand, rock, or other sediment? How fast does water move through the system? How connected are our aquifers? Will pumping water out of one impact the amount of water in another?

“We have a database of those properties, but it’s nowhere near as comprehensive as we would like,” Zemlick says. “We need a lot of data to be able to estimate, ‘We have 100 years of water,’ or ‘We have 500 years of water.’”

Luckily, Zemlick says crises often spur action, and public sentiment has shifted over the past decade to favor investments in planning, data collection, conservation, and sustainability. Public support — and deep commitment from the scientific community — will have to continue for New Mexico to find balance again.

“New Mexicans are creative and resilient, and there are a lot of people in my profession who care deeply about this,” she says. “There is optimism within us, … but my job is to think about the worst-case scenario day in and day out. That is what’s most protective of the resource. I think there are a lot of hard decisions that are going to have to be made, and it’s better if we can come up with solutions before it’s dire.”

"I think there are a lot of hard decisions that are going to have to be made, and it’s better if we can come up with solutions before it’s dire.”

The post Measuring Up New Mexico’s Aquifers appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

WaterTAP – A New Tool For Public Water System Managers

Main Stream New Mexico — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 20:23:31 +0000

WaterTAP – A New Tool For Public Water System Managers

Mar / 2026

Managing a public water system, you are balancing immediate needs like repairs and operations with bigger questions about reliability. Finding the right guidance and funding can be time-consuming, especially when information is spread across multiple programs and resources.

The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (NMISC) has launched WaterTAP, a free, web-based planning tool to help water systems managers across the state find funding, fix vulnerabilities, and plan for a more reliable water future.

A guided path from questions to next steps

WaterTAP is designed for real-world water work. It brings trusted information into a clear workflow so water system managers can move from “what are our biggest risks?” to “what should we do next?”

Using information specific to each public water system, WaterTAP provides a guided “choose-your-own-path” experience to help:

identify projects, programs and policies that improve reliability
evaluate and prioritize options based on what fits their system and goals
advocate for and get started on their projects to improve resiliency

The tool connects to public water system information to tailor suggested options to each system’s characteristics and needs, and organizes trusted information into a clear workflow that supports decision-making and next steps. To start, you can find your specific system, or you can explore a generic pathway to understand options before diving into system-level details.

“WaterTAP helps New Mexico communities move from uncertainty to action,” said Interstate Stream Commission Director Hannah Riseley-White. “It’s a practical, public-facing tool that puts useful planning support directly in the hands of the water professionals who keep communities running, so they can better navigate today’s challenges and plan for a more secure water future.”

Don’t know where to start? Sara Fox, Senior Water Planner at NMISC, has a few suggestions in her tutorial video linked below.

Supporting regional planning and local decision-making

WaterTAP helps compare and prioritize choices with practical details like estimated time ranges, cost ranges, implementation steps, and links to relevant financial and technical assistance.

The tool supports regional planning and local decision-making by packaging project ideas and next steps for boards, councils, and partners. You can adjust selections, reorder what matters most, and add details to reflect local conditions. Everything exports into a presentation-ready PDF report.

Explore the tool and customize your experience at: watertap.mainstreamnm.org

The post WaterTAP – A New Tool For Public Water System Managers appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

Can weather data help us dodge disaster?

katMainstreamadmin — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:10:36 +0000

Can weather data help us dodge disaster?

A conversation with State Climatologist Dr. Dave DuBois

Feb / 2026

In May 2022, as the largest wildfire in state history crested the hill south of Mora, New Mexico, data from the weather station in the middle of town was worth its weight in water.

During a wildfire, ground-truth reports about wind speed, relative humidity, temperature, and precipitation help protect cities, structures and lives. Every five minutes — until the Calf Canyon-Hermit’s Peak fire took out the area’s power and Internet connection — the Mora-based station updated fire managers, helping them anticipate the fire’s next move so they could decide where to go and what to do next.

That station is part of a network of 215 weather stations across New Mexico, called ZiaMet, that offers a real-time look at weather when it matters most. Data is used in familiar ways, like updating weather forecasts and reporting conditions. It is also used to issue wind warnings that protect truck drivers traversing the gusty flats of Eastern New Mexico. More expansively, it supports federal organizations monitoring drought conditions and arms farmers and ranchers with the documentation they need to apply for drought relief when times get tough.

As New Mexico’s state climatologist, Dr. Dave DuBois has spent the past five years building ZiaMet from the ground up — and, more broadly, working to fill significant weather-data gaps in the fifth-largest state in the nation.

“My whole time in this position, we’ve been in a drought,” he says. “And climate change really tips the odds in favor of severe conditions. We have to have the infrastructure in place, and we have to be ready when things reach that point.”

Shining a light in dark places

DuBois signed on as state climatologist in 2010 after a career that spanned physics, lasers, and meteorology. His focus on data is setting the state up to weather climate change as it intensifies. (Researchers anticipate New Mexico will see a 25% reduction in surface water and groundwater over the next 50 years.)

DuBois is a scientist at heart, but he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. Although he has hired technicians, he still services some of ZiaMet’s more than 200 stations when they need maintenance or repair, climbing towers with the expertise, if not the ease, of a certified lineman.

“I’m over 60 now, you know, so I’ve gotta be careful,” he says, smiling.

As part of his data mission, DuBois is pairing his high-tech weather stations with vital citizen-science programs that serve the dual purposes of data collection and public engagement. CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network, is a national program through which anyone with an interest and a bit of inexpensive equipment can help keep track of local precipitation levels.

The network came online in 1998 in Colorado. New Mexico, one of the first states to join up, has up to 600 regular observers. DuBois says he’d love to see that number grow.

“We've got really faithful observers across New Mexico,” he says. “Snow is really hard to measure, and we don’t have the money to have automated stations. It would cost millions and millions of dollars to do that. So, if we have some trained people, whether it's school teachers or retired folks, they're gold, in my opinion.”

CoCoRaHS observers learn how to measure the water content of snow — a vital piece of data that helps researchers predict soil moisture levels and anticipate how much water will feed mountain springs and replenish aquifers come spring. Some observers’ data shines a light in previously dark locations.

“There are some observers that are really critical, that are not even covered by our radar,” DuBois says.

DuBois also serves as director of the New Mexico Climate Center at New Mexico State University. Along with his team, he’s working to build out a data visualization website that tracks both ZiaMet and CoCoRaHS observations — all with an aim of helping folks plan for the “slow-moving disaster” that is climate change.

“What can we glean from the past? How do we move forward?” he says. “We really have to keep at it.”

The post Can weather data help us dodge disaster? appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

Investing in Farm- and Ranch-Led Drought Solutions

katMainstreamadmin — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:35:14 +0000

Investing in Farm- and Ranch-Led Drought Solutions

An interview with Sam Fernald of New Mexico State University

Dec / 2025

The image of a multi-million-dollar water treatment facility sitting abandoned and inoperable in the Dominican Republic is still fresh in Sam Fernald’s mind.

A professor of watershed management at New Mexico State University and the director of the state’s Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI), Fernald visited the site in the 1990s while working on an environmental project for the United Nations. The facility was high-tech and modern, the result of decades of academic research and expert engineering. And yet there it stood, its solar panels and other infrastructure scavenged, waiting for local funding and qualified technicians to operate it.

That, Fernald learned, was what happened when well-meaning academics and policymakers instituted solutions from the top down — without considering the interests, needs, resources, or proposed solutions of local communities.

“In the past, they’d go out to communities and give them technology that was completely impossible for them to implement economically and technologically,” Fernald says. “We know now that stakeholders’ perspectives are so important.”

In the 30 years since, Fernald says he’s seen a sea change in how water professionals involve communities in the work of change. And here in New Mexico, community involvement is not only leading to more tenable solutions, it’s also fueling practical and forward-thinking innovations and helping the state — and our farming and ranching industries — prepare for a water-scarce future before it’s too late.

Advancing Solutions with Farmers and Ranchers

Fernald signed onto the WRRI in 2011. The organization — founded in the 1960s — was the first of its kind, a statewide research group devoted entirely to solving problems related to water supply, drought, and how we can share what we have. A few decades after its founding, New Mexico’s WRRI would become the U.S. government’s model for organizing institutes in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and three U.S. territories.

Today, much of WRRI’s work in New Mexico is focused on building real solutions that work for real people. Considering the scientific consensus (that New Mexico will see a 25% reduction in available water over the next 50 years) and the fact that agriculture regularly accounts for about three-quarters of the state's water consumption, Fernald and his teams are researching and putting ideas into practice with farmers and ranchers, all aimed at preventing New Mexico’s agriculture industry (and the livelihoods that rely on it) from drying out in the decades ahead.

Profit margins are often slim for farmers, which makes it hard to invest in new technologies, equipment, or crops. But that doesn’t mean the desire to innovate and respond to changing conditions isn’t there. Farmers, he says, just need support to do it. And that’s where the State of New Mexico is coming in.

In early 2025, the New Mexico Legislature authorized the WRRI and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to distribute $5 million in grants to farmers to study water resiliency in agriculture. Interest in the project among farmers, Fernald says, was massive - and it's already paying off. “There’s a huge pent-up demand for it,” he says. “We had requests for more than double the amount of funding we had available, and that was just in this first year.”

The program, officially titled the Agricultural Water Resiliency Program, has proved to be the antithesis of that empty, expensive water-treatment facility in the Dominican Republic.

The 41 projects funded so far are wide-ranging, but they share a common goal: to make more efficient use of our scant water resources. Some highlights include:

Modernizing irrigation methods: Traditional irrigation relies heavily on gravity. When farmers open their headgates, it can take days for water to make its way across their fields. A series of research projects is investigating more modern irrigation methods. “If you put on some pipes with gates and valves, you can cover your whole field in a few hours,” Fernald says. “It’s more efficient, and the same water goes farther, and you’re not impacting your agricultural capability.”

Another set of projects is investigating drip and sprinkler systems. Instead of flood irrigation, which has its own benefits for recharging aquifers, these systems use less groundwater to get the same amount of crop yield.

Evaporation reduction from livestock watering: In our arid state, evaporation is a huge water consumer in its own right. (More than 7% of the state’s water use can be attributed to evaporation from reservoirs alone.) A series of research projects is investigating how ranchers can reduce evaporation from stock tanks, from which ranch animals and wildlife drink. “It's just constantly evaporating,” Fernald says. “And in some cases, it'll actually dry up, and the livestock and any other wildlife that use it don't have water.” Shade balls, which are small, black plastic balls that cover the surface of the water, reduce evaporation while still allowing animals to stick their heads in and drink.

Other studies investigate the use of renewables, like solar pumps, that more efficiently manage water supplies with targeted pumping and delivery.

Overall, these projects will give farmers, planners, and researchers hard data about what works — and ultimately, they will inform the state’s regional planners and legislators about which technologies or approaches are most feasible, cost-effective, and save the most water.

Fernald says he hopes legislators will fund the project anew this year. In the meantime, the WRRI has a handful of other research grants in the works as well.

Some investigate water-wise crops like saffron, truffles, pistachios, and Christmas trees as potential alternatives to thirstier mainstays like pecans. Other studies examine ways to retain more water in watersheds and fallow fields without impacting industry.

All of them, Fernald says, involve stakeholders in envisioning a waterwise future in New Mexico.

“We're moving toward a system where there's more of a voice for the regional water users,” he says. “This is more than buy-in. It’s the actual ideas, the creativity, the needs of the people who are actually managing the water.”

The post Investing in Farm- and Ranch-Led Drought Solutions appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

Supporting Acequia Resilience

katMainstreamadmin — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 22:54:52 +0000

Supporting Acequia Resilience

An interview with Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association

Nov / 2025

There is perhaps no better place in New Mexico to experience the joys — and challenges — of community than on the banks of an acequia in early spring.

As days get longer and snowmelt collects in streams and rivers, communities gather on the banks of these centuries-old irrigation canals. The spring reconnects neighbors through the seasonal work of cleaning and repairing this shared waterway, preparing for snow melt to flow through the channels, where parciantes (or “water users”) open headgates on their designated days, diverting water to trees, fields, and gardens. “Seeing water flow from the acequia into a field is a beautiful experience,” says Paula Garcia, executive director of the nonprofit New Mexico Acequia Association and a parciante of several acequias near Mora.

Acequias are where the delicate dance of self-advocacy and compromise ensures that everyone gets their fair share of our most precious resource. But as climate change heats up our corner of the world making water less available, New Mexico’s acequias are getting more and more strained. “Our communities have survived hundreds of years based on customs to share water during times of drought,” says Garcia. However, decades-long drought, climate change, and wildfire damage have presented acequias with multiple challenges at once. “It isn’t enough to keep our water sharing customs alive. We have to adapt to climate disruption and develop greater resilience.”

"Seeing water flow from the acequia into a field is a beautiful experience”

‘A Huge Undertaking’

The system that exists today in New Mexico is a melding of long-held cultural traditions. Acequias are often attributed to Spanish settlement in the 1600s, but the technology has deep roots in Native American methods of agriculture and irrigation, as well as blended techniques and traditions from the mestizo (mixed-blood) settlers from present-day Mexico.

Today, there are an estimated 700+ acequias in New Mexico. Some, like Santa Fe’s Acequia Madre, have rich, well-documented histories. Many are studied and well documented by experts through the adjudication process, which are court proceedings that quantify water rights. Others have never been studied, mapped, or adjudicated and are known mostly to their parciantes.

The New Mexico Acequia Association has been providing education, outreach, and technical assistance to acequias for over three decades. As the threat of drought, wildfires, and flash floods increases, this work is increasingly important. In 2022, the largest fire in the state’s history, the Calf Canyon-Hermit’s Peak fire, raged through San Miguel and Mora counties, devastating homes, farms, and centuries-old acequia systems. Since then, the NM Acequia Association has worked collaboratively with state and federal agencies on disaster recovery.

Natural disasters can devastate these historic waterways and imperil the livelihoods and long-held cultural traditions of their users.

Just after the fires, Garcia says at over 90 acequias, including one that flows through her property, were damaged as burn scar flooding washed ash, sediment, and fire debris downstream. It took three years for Garcia’s acequia to be repaired and the work is ongoing due to recurring flooding. “It takes tremendous resources to restore acequias after a disaster” says Garcia. It requires not just funding and labor, but also technical and legal support to navigate complex state and federal programs like FEMA.

Garcia says she’s hoping the state’s regional water planning process will help stakeholders statewide create resiliency before disaster strikes by identifying and planning for infrastructure needs, and by building a common set of data that everyone can utilize to protect acequia systems.

Despite the risks, Garcia says she’s hopeful about the future. Acequias have survived over the generations, through shifts in farming practices and technologies, through outmigration and intensifying climate change. Perhaps, she wonders, that’s because they’re about more than just water.

“Having a sense of place and a sense of purpose is extremely important for our well-being,” Garcia says. “Acequias can be a big part of that. They foster community at a time when we need community more than ever.”

The post Supporting Acequia Resilience appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

Conservation, Modernization, and Action: An Interview with State Engineer Liz Anderson

katMainstreamadmin — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 22:04:49 +0000

Conservation, Modernization, and Action: An Interview with State Engineer Liz Anderson

Nov / 2025

In other Western states, the old maxim may ring true: “Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting over.” It’s not surprising, perhaps, that it occasionally raises the temperature of public discourse, given water’s scarcity in the arid Southwest. But in New Mexico, where we’re facing an increasingly dry future, water managers have been leaning into planning and collaboration instead, with exciting results to show for it — and more progress on the way.

“We are way ahead of the game compared to a lot of places,” says Liz Anderson, who leads New Mexico’s Office of the State Engineer and serves as Secretary of New Mexico’s Interstate Stream Commission, the two state agencies that jointly manage and administer all of New Mexico’s surface and groundwater. “Everybody in the Western United States is facing these same challenges, but we already have structures in place to help us share the water. And we have people working together.”

Take the state’s Active Water Resources Management statute. Passed in 2004, a few years into the state’s ongoing multi-decade drought, the act helps water users outline how they’ll share water in the case of scarcity.

Then there’s Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 50-Year Water Action Plan, a comprehensive roadmap that lays out New Mexico’s water use and conservation work for the next half-century while ensuring there’s enough water available for economic development, too.

“Everybody in the Western United States is facing these same challenges, but we already have structures in place to help us share the water. And we have people working together."

These structures are especially critical today, as climate scientists predict that the state will have 25% less water in its rivers, reservoirs, and groundwater reserves over the next 50 years.

“Everything we’re doing here [at OSE and ISC] is to provide a prosperous future for the state,” Anderson says. “New Mexico is open for business, and we’re prioritizing all the things we need to be a thriving community.”

Anderson stepped into the State Engineer role in 2024 when her predecessor, Mike Hamman, retired. She brings more than 20 years of water experience to the role — first as an environmental engineering consultant, and then as Chief Planning Officer for the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority.

In 2023, Anderson signed on to advise Hamman after the two met while collaborating on the Governor’s Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force. As State Engineer, she’s now working to modernize the agencies.

That modernization work will allow current in-person tasks like permitting to take place online while also improving the efficiency of water administration tasks within the agency. And it will allow water managers and users more visibility into the state’s water data and resources, and how they’re being used.

“If you don’t have a way of measuring how much water is being used in different parts of the system, then you can’t figure out how to share that water,” Anderson says. “You can’t get people to take less when they need to. We need more tools that actually get that data into the hands of the people who are using the water day-to-day.”

Anderson is also prioritizing Indian water rights settlements. Six have already been signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and are awaiting approval by Congress — marking the most ever completed by a single administration. If approved as drafted, the settlements would bring about $3.2 billion of federal funding into the state to support not only tribal entities but also surrounding communities.

More work remains, including completing the water rights settlement with the six Middle Rio Grande pueblos, an undertaking that Anderson describes as “challenging and critical.”

“All of the settlements are incredibly important, and it’s exciting to note the progress that has been made,” she says.

Native American communities have been conserving and sharing water in New Mexico for generations — an ethos that residents, policymakers, and water planners throughout the state have increasingly adopted. As an example, over the past 30 years, residents of Albuquerque and Santa Fe have cut per-capita water use in half.

“You can’t get people to take less when they need to. We need more tools that actually get that data into the hands of the people who are using the water day-to-day.”

Anderson hopes the state’s regional planning efforts will spur on that ethos while helping policymakers identify and fund priority projects. Under the Water Security Planning Act’s proposed rule, which recommends nine distinct regions, local stakeholders will have more power than ever to identify their regions’ needs and prioritize projects based on local values — and our shared desire for a strong and sustainable water future.

Additionally, last year the legislature allocated five million dollars to fund 41 pilot projects investigating innovations in agriculture throughout the state, supporting farmers and ranchers to implement techniques that increase resiliency, protect livelihoods, and reduce water use.

“New Mexico has been dealing with drought for a long time,” Anderson says. “In some places, people really take water for granted. Here in New Mexico, we cherish it, and we’re already working on critical, long-term solutions to prepare for a hotter, drier future.”

New Mexico’s Accomplishments:

A strong system of water-sharing agreements
Regional planning is underway
50-Year Water Action Plan
Indian water rights settlements are awaiting Congressional approval

Where the Office of the State Engineer is Headed:

Modernizing measurement and administration systems
Enhanced data tracking systems
Continued Indian water rights settlement work
Resolution of Texas v. New Mexico is around the corner

The post Conservation, Modernization, and Action: An Interview with State Engineer Liz Anderson appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.

The Future of Fly Fishing in New Mexico

katMainstreamadmin — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 14:23:32 +0000

The Future of Fly Fishing in New Mexico

Conservation at the Confluence of Science, Sport, and Culture

Oct / 2025

Fly fishing and conservation have always gone hand in hand — at least for as long as world-renowned New Mexico fly fisherman Norm Maktima can remember.

As a child, when he wasn’t walking with his father along a lonely stretch of stream near his home in Pecos, N.M., or wrangling a fresh catch on a mountain lake, Maktima was working with his local fly fishing club to plant willow trees that stabilize streambanks, to clean up rivers, and to learn about freshwater ecosystems.

Nature and nurture, ecology and recreation are what drew Maktima, a Pecos resident and former competitor for Fly Fishing Team U.S.A., to the sport in the first place. And it’s an ethos he’s hoping to pass along to the next generation of anglers as climate change intensifies and as New Mexico endures a decades-long drought.

“It’s up to us, the ones that have been in this industry, that have been fly fishing for a long time, to really teach the next generation how to be more responsible with the water we have,” says Maktima.

A culture of conservation

It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that fly fishing emerged in the American Southwest, but Native Americans — including Maktima’s Puebloan ancestors — have fished New Mexico’s waters for hundreds of years.

Maktima learned the sport at the age of 7 from his father, who is from the Hopi Tribe and Laguna Pueblo. Alongside practical instruction — like learning to tie intricate flies that mimic fish’s natural food source — Maktima’s father imparted cultural knowledge in the form of storytelling. He learned about the interconnectedness of the natural world and deepened his respect for all living things.

“There’s a lot more to fly fishing than just catching fish,” Maktima says. “It’s understanding how insects live, thinking about the trout’s food source rather than just the trout. It’s understanding water temperature and oxygenation. The pH balance and the nutrient content have to be optimal.

“That was what I recognized as a kid, how I could meld and marry fly fishing, culture, science. It all came into play.”

As a teenager, he became skilled at tying flies — an art form unto itself — and began competing in youth fly fishing tournaments. In 1998, he represented the U.S. Youth Fly Fishing Team at the world championships in Wales, taking home the individual gold medal and helping his team secure second place.

Today, Maktima is a legend in his sport. An experienced guide, he puts his deep knowledge of the flora, fauna, and flows of New Mexico’s waterways to use, leading clients on fly fishing expeditions. He designs and sells flies and fly fishing goods inspired by his Puebloan culture. He coaches the world champion USA Fly Fishing Women’s Team, and he advocates alongside his peers for sustainability in his sport.

‘Every year, we’re crossing our fingers’

The fishing industry is a significant contributor to New Mexico’s economy as tourists flock to the state’s waters. In 2023 fishing and boating generated nearly $93 million dollars in profit for the state.

Maktima says the industry’s fortunes have always ebbed and flowed with the rise and fall of New Mexico’s rivers and streams. Snowy winters yield strong, frigid spring flows that make ideal spawning habitat for species like trout and native Rio Grande Cutthroat. In recent years, however, warmer, drier winters have led to fewer fish.

Some of the ebb and flow is to be expected — a natural consequence for an industry so tied to the land. But Maktima says inconsistency in precipitation and weather patterns over the past quarter-century has introduced extra uncertainty.

“It seems like every year we’re crossing our fingers,” he says.

As New Mexico heats up and aridification intensifies, scientists anticipate about 25% less water in New Mexico’s rivers, streams, and aquifers over the next 50 years. A hotter, drier high desert also means more frequent, more severe forest fires, which can pollute streams, lakes, and rivers, killing off fish.

Maktima says the fly fishing industry has stepped up its conservation game in recent years, with organizations like New Mexico Trout, Trout Unlimited, and others coming together to care for the state’s riparian ecosystems, to promote the fishing of hardier, warmer-water species, and to prevent mining operations from polluting and stripping water from underground aquifers.

It’s efforts like these that keep Maktima feeling optimistic about the future of his sport.

“With more of us out here learning and understanding our impact, I’m hopeful that our fly fishing community can help shape the industry going forward,” he says.

The post The Future of Fly Fishing in New Mexico appeared first on Main Stream New Mexico.