Kevin Drum, responding to this Brad Plumber piece, has a concise examination of why fixing our water mess is so difficult:

Reducing agricultural water use by 20% would basically solve all our problems, but it can’t be done because water rights are controlled by an almost impenetrable maze of local water districts, Spanish land grants, English common law, multi-state compacts, acts of Congress, court rulings at every level imaginable, overlapping jurisdictions, and local, state and federal environmental regulations. And that’s not even counting the vast corporate lobbying forces that would be at work even if the legal Gordian knot weren’t.

Good reads all around.

New Mexico’s water math isn’t adding up. Real water plus paper water are supposed to equal water supply, but it doesn’t, especially during drought.

Real water: That’s wet water, the stuff one needs for drinking, washing clothes, growing food, building houses and cooling power plants.

Paper water: The piece of paper that says how much real water someone has the legal right to use.

The problem: New Mexico has more paper water than real water.

The result: Someone is going to go thirsty.

This has to be taken into consideration when entities are divvying up water. This might also be of particular concern for residents in southwest New Mexico in regard to the Arizona Water Settlements Act.

This Watershed Improvement Plan and Strategy (WIPS) is an inventory and data resource in support of a science-based approach to watershed resource planning. Watershed remediation work to improve deteriorated conditions is often supported by federal funds made available through Section (§)319 provisions of the Clean Water Act (CWA). This WIPS is a required component in New Mexico to securing §319 non-point source pollutant grant funding through the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and New Mexico Environment Department (NMED; 2006b).

The file is huge — 276 MB (!) — and you’ll need to download the latest Acrobat Reader (version 8) just to open it, but the table of contents looks like there’s a lot of great information (including sections on watershed geography and conditions) and maps for you technophiles:

Don’t all of you download it at once — I like my server up and running.

Bruce Anderson, a Gila National Forest wildlife biologist, provided these before-and-after photos from one of the areas that was treated with fire. As you can see from the photos above, the area is returning to more of a “woodland” system, as opposed to a heavily forested (with piñon and juniper) system. The first photo is from August, while the second photo was taken more than a year ago in April 2006.

Here’s what he said about the project:

During the past several years, project partners completed a number of prescribed burns, totaling more than 55,000 acres, in the Mangas watershed area. In addition, more than 250 erosion control structures were completed along rills in the watershed.

The difference has been drastic. Bruce Anderson, a biologist with the Gila National Forest, told the Daily Press his agency was “very supportive” of the type of habitat restoration the Mangas project fostered.

“We’re seeing tremendous results,” Anderson said. “We’ve been doing this since 2000, and we’ve seen a very definite increase in the amount of deer use in these areas, as well as many of the other species.”

One of the constants during the past two years has been the number of Forest Service employees (and others) explaining the benefits of prescribed fires. Even after the tragic Los Alamos fire, and a resulting ban on prescribed burns, those who work in forests know that fire is a natural part of the ecosystem. I was told yesterday that fire traditionally swept through areas of the Mangas Watershed every 8-11 years, based on tree ring samples.

Fire (like water and energy) is a complex topic here in the Southwest. It can be incredibly hazardous, especially to homes within the Wildland Urban Interface. But it can also play a vital role in restoring the forest to a more natual state.

But Day 1 really began to cook at the first panel on water sustainability. Attendees packed the room and, following panelists’ presentations, the audience threw tough questions at the speakers.

The first speaker from the panel was Tyler McMahon, a senior at Colorado College. Dressed in a gray suit with a red-striped tie not quite pulled snug, McMahon launched into an overview of his chapter, which focused on water transfers from agriculture users to urban water entities.

McMahon used a series of graphs and charts to show that water withdraws are increasing across the country and region, with Idaho and Colorado leading the western states. The driest states, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah had the least. He then went on to illustrate how farm economics and urban growth markets are together fueling the transfers.

It’s an interesting read, and I recommend you take the time to check out the entire report.

More at John’s place.

Here’s a PDF of the story.

Richardson’s explanation of the veto (the “appropriation language was problematic”) is interesting. He’s the one who wrote it (PDF, head for page 56):

Gila Basin Water Development. Continue steps necessary for the development of 14,000 acre feet of water rights and access to up to $128 million in federal funds made available as a result of the 2004 Arizona
Water Settlements Act.
$500,000 GF Nonrecurring

As you can see, the money as originally recommended was just $500,000, far short of the $4.6 million that will be required to complete all the studies.

More as I hear it. Additional info here and here.

UPDATE: Here’s the link to my story on the Daily Press Web site.

UPDATE II: For more, here’s the Silver City Daily Press editorial (PDF) about Richardson’s veto.

1. Extinction Risk Analysis for Spikedace and Loachminnow ($30,000)
2. Land-Use and Land Management of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers ($50,000)
3. Characterizing Hydrogeomorphic Conditions and Developing Stage-Discharge-Habitat Relationships for Key Ecological Attributes ($535,000)
4. River Channel Flows, Geomorphology and Habitat ($100,000)
5. Impacts of Nonnative Fishes on Native Fish Assemblages in Gila River Drainage ($40,000)
6. Riparian Vegetation Analysis ($75,000)
7. Bird Surveys on the Gila and San Francisco rivers ($25,000)
8. Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Analysis of the Upper Gila River and San Francisco River ($50,000)
9. Flow Regime Analysis ($10,000)
10. Historic Hydrologic Data ($10,000)
11. Historic Geomorphic Surveys ($10,000)
12. Historic Species Surveys ($10,000)

TOTAL: $945,000

Jon Goldstein, Richardson’s deputy communications director, said he could not confirm Mayor James Marshall’s comments regarding Silver City’s cut of Capital Outlay Funding. He did convey give this statement on the Governor’s reason for vetoing the money:

The appropriation language was problematic and didn’t include the proper balance. The different parties have not reached consensus yet on this issue, and, until that happens, it’s going to be hard to move forward. The governor remains committed to helping the parties reach consensus in the months ahead.

More in today’s Silver City Daily Press.

There’s quite a bit going on here. On one side, you have the Gila Conservation Coalition and Rep. Mimi Stewart, arguing that the $66 million tied to the Arizona Water Settlements Act can (and should) be evenly divided among the four counties in southwest New Mexico. The purpose: let each county invest the money (about $16.5 million per county), and then use the interest to pay for water projects.

On the other side is the Interstate Stream Commission, which was tasked by Congress to approve expenditures of the AWSA money (and which many feel is likely to support a diversion project). The ISC told me that House Bill 42 might not be legal, because it would supersede federal legislation. The ISC is backed up by a legislative analysis of the bill conducted by the Legislative Finance Council (see PDF here).

There were a few items that didn’t make it into my article, which I did want to mention.

Danielle Vick, Gila Program Manager for the ISC, said one of her concerns was any future development of the river. While she said a split of the initial $66 million would prohibit the state from diverting water along the Gila, there is nothing preventing a private firm from raising the funds to do so.

In addition, Vick said the scientific study being completed by the ISC would lend insight into the Gila River Basin and the river’s hydrology. She told me that nobody could describe the possible effects of residents or commercial users drilling 500 wells on private property near the river, which is one reason to continue the studies (which could be halted if House Bill 42 is adopted).

The fate of 14,000 acre-feet of water from the Gila and the San Francisco rivers is one of those issues tha’s going to be around for a while. It’s complex, and there are a lot of good ideas and strong opinions on both sides.

This bill is a reflection of that.

P.S. While we’re talking about water, I should end you over to John Fleck’s place. John has blogged several times this winter about the impact of storms on our region’s overall water situation. From one of his latest:

You can see that on the Western Regional Climate Center map above – all those bits of orange and yellow and even red across the southwest. You’ve got to get all the way over to central Colorado and New Mexico before you begin to see normal to above-normal precipitation. Those are the places most of us live – Denver and the east slope communities in Colorado, Albuquerque in New Mexico – but those are places that only contribute modestly to the region’s water supplies.

In the evening, I’m going to try to attend a Dutch Salmon presentation on the Gila, because on Wednesday the Gila will be a topic of discussion in the Rotunda.
So, stay tuned for updates here on the blog, and pick up some copies of the Silver City Daily Press for my reporting on the 2007 Legislative Session.