Western water guru Michael Campana on Martin Chavez's bottled water jihad:

Normally, I wouldn't care much about what Mayor Marty does these days since I left the Duke City in 2006. But his sponsorship of the resolution reminded me of a time six or so years ago, when I was watching the Mayor hold forth on his show on the local access cable channel. He was at his desk, drinking bottled water. Since the show was a taped rerun, I couldn't call, but emailed him, mildly scolding him for setting a poor example by drinking bottled water when Albuquerque had such good tap water.

To my surprise, he responded a few days later. After a few sentences of blather, he concluded: "For what it's worth, there was tap water in the bottle."

Perhaps I was being unfair, or perhaps because I knew Mayor Marty, I did not believe him.  

But all is forgiven, Your Honor, for you have seen the light.

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish is looking for comments on a plan to try to protect the state's waters from quagga mussels and other invasive species.

Quaggas, a little mussel capable of causing big problems, has not been found in New Mexico yet, but most of the experts I talk to say it is just a matter of time. Shaun McKinnon over at the Arizona Republic recently quoted a study that put the economic damages from quaggas in the Great Lakes area at $200 million per year - a big incentive to try to keep them from spreading to New Mexico's waters.

Tom D'Agostino, the NNSA's administration, raised the rhetorical heat yesterday during his testimony before a House subcommittee. The NNSA faces the prospect of having what it believes is one of its most important projects - a replacement for Los Alamos's aging CMR plutonium lab - zeroed out by the House. The project's critics say that, without a clear picture of the future size and role of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, the argument for building CMR, at a cost of perhaps $2 billion, is unclear. D'Agostino's sharply worded response yesterday:

What will happen if we do not transform and just maintain the status quo? The short answer is we will reach the point where NNSA will be unable to maintain America’s nuclear deterrent. Every year the costs to maintain, operate, and secure our physical infrastructure continue to rise; yet our program to sustain our infrastructure to support a reduced stockpile is cut through the appropriations process. An  independent group of scientists that advises the government, the JASONs, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and the Defense Science Board, have all issued reports or findings over the past several years highlighting the need for NNSA infrastructure improvements and modernization.

(From written text of his testimony sent out today by NNSA.) 

Joel Gay at the Independent has an excellent story on last week's court ruling on domestic water well drilling in New Mexico, with a helpful discussion on its effect on people who need well water for new homes:

If the ruling is upheld, it could have a dramatic effect on rural home owners and builders. Unless they can prove their proposed well won't affect senior water rights holders, they might have to purchase water rights from another user. That's exactly what Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and other other cities in the Rio Grande valley must do now — at a cost of $15,000 or more per acre-foot.

Home builders in urban areas don't need to worry about any of that. They simply hook up to the nearest water main. But rural homes generally need their own well, and for those homeowners the potential change in domestic well regulations could be costly in both time and money, Milarch told NMI, and has the potential to bring growth in rural areas to a standstill.

Builder Bryan Hinkle said about half the 50 to 100 homes he builds every year in the Albuquerque area require individual wells. Buying water rights for those wells could present a cash-flow problem for the customer, he said, because they would need to buy the water rights before the county even allowed them to submit a construction plan.

Between the water rights and other fees, Hinkel said, "You might have to put up $30,000 or $40,000 (before construction begins), and a lot of people can't put up that kind of money."