New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission responds to Pecos River irrigation claims

The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission says it is examining all claims of water level declines that area well owners attribute to the ISC's augmentation pumping at the Seven Rivers well field.

On Thursday, ISC staff began conducting field interviews in Lakewood and surrounding areas to examine all dry wells allegedly impaired by the ISC's pumping at Seven Rivers. The interviews will continue today.

"The ISC is taking these allegations very seriously," said Lela Hunt, ISC public information officer, in an email response to the Current-Argus' request for comment on the situation.

Hunt said the ISC was first contacted this past September by a well owner in Lakewood, advising that her well, which is between 10 and 12 miles from the Seven Rivers Well Field, had gone dry, and the ISC staff immediately responded. They provided the documentation the well owner requested and provided supplemental information about the 2003 Pecos Settlement and ISC's augmentation pumping obligations at the Seven Rivers well field in subsequent emails.

"In addition to working one-on-one with this particular well owner, on Oct. 17, ISC and the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer staff attended a public meeting in Lakewood, together with area well owners and state legislators and local political representatives," Hunt said, adding that ISC staff listened to the complaints of various well owners and addressed them in both a question and answer segment and in one-on-one

discussions with many well owners. Hunt said since the October meeting, the ISC has received additional claims of impairment. Of the almost two dozen allegedly affected wells, some are more than 20 miles away from the Seven Rivers well field and many are in a different aquifer from that in which the ISC is pumping.

"Moreover," Hunt notes, "Augmentation pumping by the ISC under the Pecos Settlement amounts to only 3 percent of all Pecos pumping in the Lower Pecos River Basin."

She said although the ISC will continue to investigate water level declines in the Lakewood area, the Pecos Basin is experiencing record drought. "Aquifer recharge is suffering and surface water supplies are extraordinarily low," she said. "For instance, the Pecos River flows have been at record lows, with the river drying at Artesia this year for the first time since 1964.

"Brantley Reservoir is at record low levels and the Carlsbad Irrigation District (CID) was able to make only one small block-release this year, as opposed to the three releases it typically makes in normal years. The past 24 months have been the hottest and driest on record in New Mexico."

ISC officials also say drought conditions are placing pressure on the implementation of the 2003 Pecos Settlement, an agreement between New Mexico, CID, Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District and the United States Bureau of Reclamation. All of the parties to the Settlement, including the ISC, are bound by its terms. "The Settlement followed New Mexico's bruising loss to Texas in 1988 in the United States Su-preme Court for violations of the Pecos River Compact," Hunt explained. "The Pecos Settlement was executed and implemented to protect water right owners throughout the Pecos Basin by preventing priority calls and the unilateral administration of the Pecos Basin by the federal gov-ernment by ensuring New Mexico's compliance with the compact."

She said currently, the drought is making it impossible for the ISC to pump a quantity of water to satisfy the "targets" set forth in the Settlement. The ISC and the other parties to the Settlement are discussing the issue and its implications for the ongoing implementation of the agreement, she said. The Settlement Agreement also requires that the ISC provide additional water to the CID, the senior water right owner on the river, through augmentation pumping at Seven Rivers.

Farming, and the water provided to irrigators within CID, is a significant component of the Carlsbad area's economy. Since the ISC began Settlement pumping in March 2011, all pumping has been for the benefit of CID; no pumping has occurred to satisfy Compact deliveries to Texas, Hunt said.

Source: http://www.currentargus.com/ci_22004438/new-mexico-interstate-stream-commission-responds-pecos-river?source=rss_viewed

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