This video was taken just over a week ago.  Late snow storm.  This property has great potential, is just 1.5hr from Santa Fe, 20 minutes from Ojo Caliente and the river runs through it.  There are some issues, three destroyed old buildings need to be cleaned up and the bridge needs repair.  However the land is pleasing and there are fish in the river.  Access is excellent and power, phone and water are on the property.  At this price this place is a MUST SEE.  Don’t wait, set up a showing right away.

Give me a call for details: 505-920-3464

See all Flyfishing Properties forsale in Northern New Mexico here: http://www.santafereal-estate.com/NMFlyFishingProperties.html

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.

Ojo Caliente: Hot springs resort and spa

This New Mexico spot is home to historic hot springs mineral waters, with a spa, resort and pueblos dating to the 15th century.

Phil Velasquez, a Tribune photographer, soaks in mineral waters at the Ojo Caliente resort in New Mexico. (Robin Daughtridge, Chicago Tribune / December 26, 2009)

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By Robin Daughtridge, Tribune NewspapersFebruary 28, 2010

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OJO CALIENTE, N.M. — When gray winter skies linger for weeks, I daydream about Ojo Caliente, N.M.

Ojo, as the locals call it, is a little town between Santa Fe and Taos that seems to exist solely to provide a ZIP code for the natural hot springs of the same name.

The first time a friend told me about Ojo, she said, “Go north from Santa Fe to Espanola and take a left.” Those directions aren’t far off: The town is about an hour and 15 minutes from Santa Fe — and worth every minute of the commute.

Luxurious without pretension, Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa (800-222-9162; ojocalientesprings.com) has deep roots in the past but has been updated for spa lovers. And everyone who works there seems happy, maybe because they can use the spa for free.

No one knows exactly how long the springs have been used, but the ruins of a pueblo remain on the cliff above the spa. You can hike up, see the village’s footprint and view the petroglyphs that inspired Ojo’s concentric-circles logo.

Archaeologists have determined that the Posi pueblo was last active in the 15th century, said Laurie Moreau, executive assistant at the resort. The Spaniards arrived in the 1500s, and though they didn’t find their elusive Fountain of Youth, they certainly found the springs. They gave Ojo its name, which means “hot eye.”

In 1868, merchant Antonio Joseph, a New Mexico territorial representative, opened the first spa at the mineral springs (said to be the first natural spa in the country), as well as lodging and a general store. An 1880 photo of the original mercantile establishment, filled with men surrounding a stove and others in long coats who appear to be packing heat, hangs at the spa. Store ledgers show that explorer and fur trapper Kit Carson bought supplies there.

We purchased a package deal — the High Desert Getaway for Two — in late December for $219. It included a 50-minute massage followed by 50 minutes in a private pool. A large towel is provided. For $15, you get a locker, a plush robe and extra towels. The private waters are open to the sky and surrounded on three sides by adobe walls, with the fourth wall being a portion of the ancient cliffs.

To ensure that we were as comfortable out of the water as when immersed, a lovely blaze was lit in the adjacent kiva fireplace, a common sight in the Southwest with its distinctive arched fire door. Purchasing a spa treatment gained us unlimited access to communal areas, including iron, soda and mud pools (the mud pools are closed for the winter, but we have seen people slathered in mud on previous visits).

A new entrance building, completed in 2008, enhances the experience; the former entrance was a small shack. Locker rooms have been enlarged and updated. My only wish was for some complimentary toiletries in the locker area.

Pampered and relaxed, we returned to Santa Fe the same evening. But if spagoers prefer to stay the night, there are hotel rooms (built in 1916 on the National Register of Historic Places) and lovely cliffside suites, with rates ranging from $119 at the hotel to $329 for a suite. The new suites and cottages, built within the last 10 years, are designed around a small plaza in homage to the nearby pueblos. Cliffside rooms have private tubs.

If you yearn for a respite from the 100-degree waters, you can always jump into what my masseuse called the “Ojo cold plunge.” Yep, it was chilly — 84 degrees is frigid around those parts.

rdaughtridge@tribune.com

Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune

For a video vist to the village of Ojo Caliente see the post below and visit us at www.santafereal-estate.com

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