New Mexico’s next governor should be ready to confront the state’s critical water issues on his or her first day in office.
That’s according to Mike Connor, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior during the Obama administration, who spoke at a water conference at the University of New Mexico on Thursday.
Susana Martinez’s administration—to what the next governor needs to understand about New Mexico’s water challenges, from drought and water transfers to interstream agreements, including on the Colorado River, whose waters seven U.S. states and Mexico share.
The conference lineup included former federal officials like Connor, as well as political appointees who served under Govs.
Crisis vs. opportunity Adrian Oglesby, director of UNM’s Utton Transboundary Resources Center, touched upon some of the most important water issues in the state, including drought, Indian water rights settlements, the Gila River diversion, pending groundwater permits and New Mexico’s ability to deliver water to downstream users under interstate compacts.
“Along those lines, at the Utton Center we like to harp on preventive diplomacy.” Whether people view a warm, dry year like this one as a crisis or an opportunity, he said, “it’s up to us, and it depends on the relationships we form in this room together.” Oglesby also noted that Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado, the U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit over water from the Rio Grande, is “about to start getting much more interesting.” In 2013, Texas sued the upstream states of New Mexico and Colorado, alleging that by allowing southern New Mexico farmers to pump groundwater connected to the Rio Grande, the state failed to send its legal share of water downstream.
“Outside of New Mexico, New Mexico’s water issues are not the center of anyone’s attention,” he said, adding that “New Mexico needs to take the lead to care about itself, then drive the process.” The state needs to focus its water priorities and step up participation in federal partnerships and programs that address drought, he said.
There is also “opportunity and need in engaging New Mexico’s tribes,” he said.
“Beyond settlements, there is also the need and opportunity to engage with tribes in water resources management and strategies,” he said.
Instead, it should drive innovation.