Incoming state engineer will face a changing role

“You want to make enough progress that you keep momentum going forward without going so far that you step on a land mine, like a lawsuit, that stops everything,” D’Antonio said a couple of years ago.

D’Antonio has hit more than one legal land mine during his tenure refereeing over New Mexico’s water, a natural resource critical to the state’s economic and ecological well-being.

Newly inaugurated Gov. Susana Martinez has yet to name a new state engineer.

Martinez’s search committee is chaired by Albuquerque developer and contractor Jack Westman. Search committee members include former environment secretary Peter Maggiore of Los Alamos; Albuquerque lawyer Colin Hunter; Taos County rancher Erminio Martinez; John Jones, chief operating officer for Entranosa Water and Wastewater Association in Albuquerque; and Corrales lawyer Deborah Peacock.

Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said the primary duty of the state engineer is administering water rights, complying with federal river interstate compacts “and continuing to push forward on adjudications.”

Adjudication is the legal process by which a court declares water rights. New Mexico prioritizes water rights on who used water first, also known as “first in time, first in right.” Less than a third of the water rights in the state have been adjudicated. The most senior water rights, in general, belong to tribes and farmers, while towns and utilities have the most junior rights.

“I do think the state engineer’s job is changing because state is changing,” said Wirth, an advisory member on the Senate Water and Natural Resources Committee for the last seven years. “Our population is growing, and we’re experiencing more extreme climate change, so that makes this job that much tougher because we’re dealing with a finite resource.”

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that municipalities are new players at the table,” Wirth said. “They have junior water rights. So under a system of priority administration, when there’s not enough water, junior water rights get shut off first.”

Some people think D’Antonio has overstepped his legal bounds as state engineer. His office is facing two challenges in the state Supreme Court — one over his attempt to regulate water distribution in dry years, and the other over permits issued for private domestic wells.

D’Antonio once said that without better rules for administering water in the state during drought, there’s little but “chaos.”

Wirth said the state engineer has historically been an active player in New Mexico’s economic development. “What’s challenging is it was often done with water rights that weren’t fully adjudicated,” he said. “It is a balance between economic development and water resources.”

Intel in Rio Rancho, for example, wouldn’t exist without water, and the company tried recently to cut a new deal with the state to meet its obligations for water rights.

Cities such as Albuquerque and Santa Fe cannot grow without water.

They compete with tribes and farmers for senior water rights in the state.

New Mexico has to meet those needs and still deliver water promised to Texas from the Pecos River and Rio Grande under interstate stream compacts.

Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association, which advocates for many of the senior water-rights holders in the state, said it was “imperative that the next state engineer be sympathetic to irrigation in New Mexico.”

“One could say that water policy is socio-economic policy,” Garcia wrote via e-mail. “The role of state engineer is not merely to quantify and allocate water from a purely technical point of view. He is also the chief regulator that determines the extent that water is a marketable commodity.”

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

Link to photos and story: http://www.santafereal-estate.com/troutunlimitednewmexicoflyfishing.html

Link to Timberline Ranch on the Rio de Los Pinos: http://www.santafereal-estate.com/RioDeLosPinosFlyFishingRanch.html