I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Rio Grande cutting through Albuquerque's North Valley, as seen from an air balloon. (Photo by rmainuk/Flickr)
Trudy Jones, an Albuquerque city councillor, is the new head of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, the flagship of which is its newly operational 100,000 acre-foot river diversion project, near the Alameda Bridge.
Shortly after assuming office, Jones was quoted as saying that the political decisions about water should be left up to the city and county governments and the water authority should “just be a normal utility.”
“What,” the thinking reader might ask, “is a ‘normal utility’”?
One possible model is the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power of the 1920’s which, in order to supply the city’s subsequent growth, consumed the annual flow of the Los Angeles River, conspired to alienate the water rights of farmers in the distant Owens Valley and now diverts a substantial portion of the Colorado River (4.4 million acre-feet or more, each year). The hallmarks of this model are: a single-minded devotion to civic growth and a closed governing elite, employing secrecy, terror and propaganda to achieve its aims, not exactly the democratic vision of water management preferred by most New Mexicans.
(The Los Angeles water saga was the fictionalized subject of the 1974 film “Chinatown,” a film noir Albuquerqueans may want to re-visit as they ponder where current local water politics are leading.)
A second model of the “normal utility” might be a modern New Mexico power, transportation or telecommunications company, which is subject to the substantial regulatory authority of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.
The PRC is mandated to watchdog the public interest, meddling in such otherwise private matters as utility rates, capital retention, bonding capacity, commodity production and pollution discharges of most of the state’s public utilities. It’s unlikely, though, that such a regulatory model would appeal to our water utility authority.
Theoretically, the utility is subject to regulation by the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, via a water right permit.
However, the OSE has imposed few conditions on, and assumed little oversight of, the Albuquerque’s water authority. The OSE condition requiring the utility to meet conservation goals might easily be satisfied by a little Enron-style accounting. The requirement that half of the water diverted must be returned to the river is a slam-dunk in a wastewater system that get substantial inputs from UNM and Kirtland AFB wells, no conservation needed.
The requirement that the utility release reservoir water to offset the depleting effect of past aquifer mining on the Rio Grande may, or may not, offset these effects in real time.
The third model of a “normal utility” is becoming the 21st Century norm. This “normal” is the opposite of the first: a utility that engages with its customers, discloses relevant information and considers issues that concern the common citizen; it empowers citizens to be involved in decision-making processes; it is accountable for the effects of its operations and also accountable to other constituencies that the developmentalists, those having a vital interest in sustaining the region’s water supply: the environment, neighboring water users and future generations.
This is not a fantasy utility: many of these attributes may be found just up I-25 in Santa Fe.
As for the proper role of politics in water management, Albuquerque Journal reporter Sean Olsen writes:
The issue has come up often in the past two years, with some former water board members advocating building code, water use and growth policies being administered through the water authority. Other members, like Jones, have argued the proper forum for those decisions should be left to an elected body.
Five years ago, the New Mexico Legislature created the water utility authority in statute and is arguably ready to legislate such changes as the citizens might desire. These might include an independently elected utility board, with provisions for citizen input into policies and stricter accountability for its fiscal and environmental decision-making.
Whether status quo or reform prevails, this body is having a profound effect on the Rio Grande. It can be insulated from public scrutiny, but not from politics.
The proper question is: What kind of politics best serves all those who have a stake in the river?
Steve Harris is the executive director of the nonprofit Rio Grande Restoration. He lives in Pilar, New Mexico.
