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Speculative Water Grab Threatens New Mexico’s Rivers

Date
September 30, 2016
Contact
Jen Pelz (303) 884-2702
In This Release
Rivers  
#ReviveTheRio
SANTA FE, NM–In its second attempt to monopolize and profit from mining groundwater in central New Mexico, Augustin Plains Ranch published notice this month of its plan to pump and transport billions of gallons of underground water each year from beneath its ranch near Datil to sell to unidentified users in the Rio Grande valley. WildEarth Guardians challenged this speculative water grab asking the State Engineer to deny the permit as contrary to the public welfare based on the impacts of such pumping on three ecological important rivers in central New Mexico (the Gila River, Rio Grande and Alamosa Creek).

The project will consist of 37 wells on the company’s 17,000-acre ranch in Catron County, a new 140-mile pipeline from Datil to the Albuquerque metropolitan area, and a water recharge facility to collect runoff from the Plains of San Augustin to help offset effects of the pumping. The company touts the project as the next San Juan-Chama Project and claims it has the “potential to supply New Mexico’s middle Rio Grande Valley with an abundance of water for centuries to come.”

“This project is nothing more than a dubious scheme to exploit and profit from the water that belongs to all New Mexicans,” said Jen Pelz, wild rivers program director at WildEarth Guardians. “This is not the right solution for restoring the ailing Rio Grande.”

A particular concern of Guardians and others is that water pumped from beneath the Plains of San Augustin may deplete flows in Alamosa Creek, the Gila River and the Rio Grande. The application states that 54,000 acre-feet of water will be pumped each year and that the annual recharge of the aquifer is 18,000 acre-feet. The deficit of 36,000 acre-feet per year may result in significantly less water available to recharge Alamosa Creek. Alamosa Creek is home to the endangered Chiracahua leopard frog and Alamosa spring snail as well as Wright’s marsh thistle (another rare species being considered for listing).

This is not the first time this company has tried to get this project approved. In 2008, the company filed an application that is substantially similar to this new filing. In 2012, the State Engineer denied the permit finding that it lacked specificity—it failed to identify the actual end users of the water, specific delivery points and methods of accounting for the water—as is required for any new appropriation. Further, a court upheld the State Engineer’s decision denying the application. The company has done nothing in its new application to cure these deficiencies.

“Our state is full of beautiful riparian corridors supported by our rivers and underground aquifers,” said Samantha Ruscavage-Barz, staff attorney at Guardians. “Stealing water from rural communities to make up shortfalls to the middle valley is short sighted and will only transfer the problem from one community to another.”

Other Contact
Samantha Ruscavage-Barz, (505) 401-4180