Richardson appoints Chavarria to water commission Governor Richardson has appointed Santa Clara Pueblo environmental director Joe Chavarria to the state Water Quality Control Commission. Chavarria will serve a four-year term. He has been the pueblo's environmental director for the last decade. Richardson calls him a true conservationist who is committed to protecting New Mexico's water resources. Chavarria says he will be able to contribute to safeguarding such a vital natural resource....
NM protests BLM's Otero Mesa finding The head of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department wants the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider its decision regarding oil and gas development on southern New Mexico's Otero Mesa. Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Joanna Prukop said Friday she has formally asked the federal agency to withdraw its environmental assessment and decision record and finding of no significant impact for oil and gas exploration on Otero Mesa. Prukop claims the BLM is using old data and should prepare a new environmental impact statement to address changed circumstances in the region, such as groundwater contamination....
Scholar takes up battle against climate change Like Gandhi, Robb Hirsch believes people need to be the change they seek in the world. So when it comes to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that most scientists believe are at the heart of climate change, Hirsch is coaxing Santa Feans to walk their talk by taking a Power Pledge. He said 1,000 youth and adults already have joined up, promising to reduce their energy use, consume less and push their politicians to support renewable power. Hirsch wants to sign up 10,000 people. Hirsch, a Harvard graduate and Fulbright Scholar, founded the nonprofit Climate Change Leadership Institute in Santa Fe. Prior to starting the group, he worked for the U.S. State Department's Oceans, Environment and Science Bureau focusing on climate change and biodiversity treaties....
Aamodt papers generate questions The thick envelope in Tammy and Abel Blea's Tesuque mailbox from the State Engineer's Office meant one thing: Something big was finally happening with their water rights. Those thick envelopes are appearing in mailboxes all over the Pojoaque Valley this week as the 42-year-old water-rights case known as Aamodt struggles toward conclusion. Aamodt was filed in 1966 to settle the water rights of Santa Fe County residents in the valley and four pueblos — Tesuque, Pojoaque, Nambé and San Ildefonso. So what's in the big envelope and what does it mean for people who get them? People with domestic wells permitted after 1982 in the Pojoaque Valley are receiving the packets. The paperwork inside is supposed to help finalize their legal claims to their domestic wells and determine how much water they can pump each year. People who get one of the manila envelopes have 45 days from the time they get them to make a few decisions....
Court to reconsider water-rights cases The state Court of Appeals has sent two acequia cases involving Española businessman Richard Cook back to Santa Fe District Court, ruling the state law that allows ditch commissions to deny water-rights transfer requests is constitutional. How the ditch commissioners of La Acequia del Gavilan near Ojo Caliente and the San Jose de Hernández Community Ditch in Hernández applied the law might be unconstitutional, but that will be for Santa Fe District Court Judge Daniel A. Sanchez to decide. Cook, who has owned mining and lumber interests around Northern New Mexico, applied to transfer water from the Gavilan ditch to a pond on property he owned. The state engineer has said Cook needs to buy irrigation water rights and retire them to offset evaporation in the pond. In the Hernández ditch case, the Peña Blanca Partnership, for which Cook is listed as a general partner, filed a request to transfer irrigation water rights off the ditch and use them for a housing subdivision near Española....
Water rights saga A Socorro water rights expert has said a court decision requiring the Office of the State Engineer to evaluate each permit application for a domestic or livestock well is right for only certain parts of the state. The Office of the State Engineer would like to see the decision overturned to avoid the increased workload of evaluating 1,500 to 2,000 such applications a year. In March, Judge J.C. Robinson of the 6th Judicial District Court in Silver City ruled that the state law requiring the State Engineer to approve all permits for livestock and domestic wells was unconstitutional. The case was in the Mimbres basin, where water rights were adjudicated, or legally determined and declared by the courts, for irrigation but not for livestock and domestic uses, said President of the Rio Grande Water Association Suzanne Smith, a Socorro water rights consultant. The Office of the State Engineer appealed the ruling this summer, and thereby halted enforcement. The decision in the case filed by plaintiffs Horace Bounds Jr. and Jo Bounds says the law doesn't allow for consideration as to whether it will adversely affect waters users with older water rights and so contradicts previous rules. "In areas where water has been adjudicated or is subject to interstate or international boundaries, the Bounds decision is a valid decision to protect senior water users," Smith said. However, speaking at the Socorro County Farm and Livestock Bureau annual meeting Oct. 13, Smith said she believes that in areas that have unappropriated, or unassigned, groundwater, the State Engineer should be required to issue domestic and livestock permits....
Arizona developer brings horse racing money to Tularosa Basin Around 300 horses, 10 barns and a 3/4-mile track a complete racehorse training facility are tucked away on 600 acres a mile north of Tularosa. Horseman's Park is a six-year project headed by Mickey Samuell, 73, an Arizona and New Mexico real estate developer, and his son Robert, 45, a racehorse owner-trainer with eight horses running at Zia Park and a couple dozen more back in his barns. The development has already had an economic impact on the area, estimated by the Samuells at $360,000 a month. That's a lot of hay and grain, as well as pay for riders, grooms, veterinarians and farriers, people care for horses' feet. "Right now, as a total operation, we may be one of the largest employers in Tularosa with 50," Mickey Samuell said last week in interviews at Horseman's Park at his home and son Robert's barn. Cordova said the village is turning into an equine center with the establishment of Crystal Springs, another thoroughbred operation, a half-mile from Horseman's Park and a proposal under consideration for a third. What makes Samuell's operation different is individuals can put up their own barns, or lease part of a barn, with full use of the track and all other facilities available at the park to keep their horses in top condition. "Horse racing is the only growth industry in the state....
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