State lawmakers talk tough on adjudicating water rights
State legislators meeting in Las Cruces this week are talking about springing loose millions of dollars in state funds to help untangle one of the state's thorniest issues: who is entitled to water and how much are they entitled to?
The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that state Sen. Mary Kay Papen, a Las Cruces Democrat, suggested at a meeting of the Water and Natural Resources Committee that the Legislature appropriate $10 million for the process of adjudicating water rights. And rather than wait, she suggested making the allocation during the special session that begins next week in Santa Fe.
Adjudication is the first step in determining who has legal entitlement to the water in a given river basin. There is widespread concern in many areas that relative newcomers are taking water from those with senior rights, contrary to the state constitution. Adjudication settles the question of who has senior rights and who doesn't, and also whose water use can be restricted in times of drought.
State Rep. Joseph Cervantes, also a Las Cruces Democrat, told the committee that the adjudication issue has been talked about for years, but that the Legislature has failed to address it, and therefore allowed the water rights abuse to continue. The Sun-News quotes him as saying:
"Because there's no political pressure to adjudicate, nobody does it, because in an adjudication, somebody wins and somebody loses. ... When the judge has to make a decision, somebody's happy and somebody's really unhappy. And in politics, we don't want to make anyone unhappy, so we don't adjudicate."
Only about 20 percent of the state has been adjudicated, according to the Office of the State Engineer, and there is concern that at the current pace it could take decades or more to complete the process. The OSE has said it is adjudicating claims as fast as it can, but that it doesn't have the budget to move faster.
Comments:
Posted 08/07/2008 08:45 with
The State Engineer has spent millions on adjudications, but most of that money is not used to adjudicate water rights. Instead it is spent largely on “make work” projects, such as trying to join 20,000 parties to an adjudication, which is a lawsuit, and then attempting to update the land ownership of these parties. Land ownership is regarded as key, because most of the water use is due to the exercise of irrigation water rights, and irrigation water rights are appurtenant to land. However, trying to keep up-to-the-minute records of who owns 20,000 parcels of land is like trying the chase the rainbow. The existing Rules of Civil Procedure provide tools to solve this problem, but the courts do not use the Rules effectively and often become confused by the arguments of private attorneys whose main aim is to delay the adjudication.