Letter: State Fails To Execute 2003 Pecos Pact

The state of New Mexico has failed to deliver the water as required by a 2003 agreement with Carlsbad-area farmers, the board of the Carlsbad Irrigation District charged in a letter to the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission.

The letter raises questions about the state’s implementation of a $100 million plan to try to ensure continued water for Pecos Valley farmers while also meeting New Mexico’s legal requirement to deliver water downstream to Texas.

The deal required the state to buy up and retire farmers’ water rights in the area, reducing local water demand. The state also built a groundwater well field, to be used in dry years to make up for shortfalls on the lower Pecos.

But the wells have been unable to deliver the amount of water laid out in the agreement, leaving Carlsbad-area farmers without enough water to irrigate their crops for the past two years, the CID board said in a resolution approved Jan. 7 and sent to state officials this week.

In a cover letter, CID manager Dudley Jones called for meetings to try to find a resolution of the issues before what is forecast to be a third year of drought on the river.

Rising in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, the Pecos is the primary water supply for a string of eastern New Mexico communities from Ribera in the north to Roswell and Carlsbad in the south. Alfalfa and orchard crops, especially pecans, are the most common farm products in the valley.

The 2003 agreement reflected the state’s strategy to answer complaints from Texas that New Mexico was using more than its share of the river before the Pecos entered Texas. Rather than curtail New Mexico water users on the Pecos, the state decided to buy some of them out, taking land out of production to leave more water for the river and for those farmers that remained.

Estevan López, head of the state’s Interstate Stream Commission, acknowledged in a telephone interview Tuesday the approach has not worked in what has turned into a record drought.

“The basic issue is the drought,” López said. He noted that the 24 months ending in December were the driest on record in the region.

That is the primary reason the state’s program to pump water to the Carlsbad farmers has faltered, López said.

The problems on the Pecos are on the agenda at a meeting today of the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission in Santa Fe. The meeting runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mabry Hall in the New Mexico Public Education Department, 300 Don Gaspar in Santa Fe.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal