Gov. pushes for 50-year water plan

ALBUQUERQUE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has long talked about the importance of water to the arid state, even campaigning on the idea of creating a 50-year plan to guide management of the finite resource.

Her administration is now asking lawmakers for more money and manpower to start what some experts say will be a multiyear endeavor.

Legislative budget analysts have recommended less money than requested be spent on the e≠ort, but the governor and other supporters say it’s critical for the state to start charting a course that will allow for more flexibility in managing water supplies and infrastructure in the face of weather extremes brought on by a changing climate.

A matter of “absolute importance” is how Lujan Grisham describes her call for a long-term plan to safeguard New Mexico’s water resources.

“The challenges are daunting, but they are also an opportunity,” she said in a statement to the Associated Press. “My administration will work to ensure adequate supply and create a realistic, sustainable plan, rethinking how we manage our water supply and seeing that smart water management and conservation become a way of life in New Mexico.”

Among this year’s special legislative requests are an additional five full-time employees and $750,000 that would help with the water planning e≠ort. State Engineer John D’Antonio, New Mexico’s top water o∞cial, has said requests for expanding his agency’s budget and sta≠ing all dovetail with getting the 50-year water plan o≠ the ground.

State water managers in the first week of the legislative session testified on behalf of filling existing vacancies and adding new workers to help with data collection and planning. They say they’re trying to rebuild their ranks after several austere years.

New Mexico’s most recent water plan was rolled out in 2018 and includes details about policies, historical legal cases and regional water plans. While it o≠ers an inventory of the state’s needs, critics have said it fell short of laying out a concrete path for how to solve New Mexico’s water problems.

“In my mind, in order to actually start to prepare for what we can expect in the future we’ve got a lot more science to do,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, an Albuquerque Democrat who has built a career on water rights issues.

That will include information gleaned from an ongoing study of the Rio Grande basin that’s being led by the federal Bureau of Reclamation as well as data that Stansbury said will serve as a baseline to help water managers better estimate what they can expect in terms of river flows and precipitation and how that might a≠ect existing infrastructure.

Rolf Schmidt-Petersen, director of the Interstate Stream Commission, told lawmakers during a recent hearing that the planning process is aimed at identifying both areas of resiliency and risk along the Rio Grande and other basins throughout the state.