Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Water Buys for Rio Grande Set

”Living River Fund” established for Rio Grande
Contact: Dan McKay Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico’s largest water utility plans to work with conservation groups to buy water from farmers to help keep the Rio Grande wet.

The “Living River Fund,” established Tuesday, will be the first of its kind on the Rio Grande, and private and government sources will contribute to it, supporters say.

It will be jointly operated by the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County water utility and a representative of six environmental groups.

“It’s impossible to imagine Albuquerque without the Rio Grande running through it,” Mayor Martin Chávez said.

The goal is to raise $1.5 million. The fund already has $250,000- mostly from the city-county water utility.

Creation of the fund was part of a 2005 settlement ending litigation over the endangered silvery minnow.

Protecting the Rio Grande is important because the river has no legal water rights of its own, said John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians.

“I think we all agree that a river cannot be a river without water,” Horning said.

Municipalities and others are looking to tap river water to help curb depletion of the underground water basin.

The river fund will allow the utility and conservation groups to buy water from farmers when they don’t need it or are willing to leave their fields fallow for a year. The water would be purchased under a lease, meaning the farmers would retain their water rights in future years.

The utility could release the water down the Rio Grande or store it upstream in case of emergency.

Dennis Domrzalski- a spokesman for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, which supplies water to irrigators- said he doesn’t know how many, if any, farmers will want to participate.

“That’s a personal decision they’ll have to make,” he said.

Martin Heinrich, a city councilor and chairman of the water utility, said the limited water supply requires cooperation among those who rely on the Rio Grande.

“We need to protect the river as a living river” by keeping it flowing, he said.

Kara Gillon of Defenders of Wildlife said the fund could have a real impact.

It gives “those who have water rights another option for use of those rights” in a way that helps the river, Gillon said.

The fund announced Tuesday was established by the city, the joint water utility and six conservation groups- WildEarth Guardians, Defenders of Wildlife, the National Audubon Society, the New Mexico Audubon Council, the Sierra Club and the Southwest Environmental Center.

Leasing water from agricultural users is common on many western rivers.

Copyright 2007 Albuquerque Journal – Reprinted with permission