Man from Taos appointed state engineer
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last week appointed Mike Hamman, who is from Taos, to serve as state engineer, New Mexico’s top water authority.
“Mike Hamman is a consummate expert in his field and a homegrown New Mexico professional widely respected across the state,” Lujan Grisham stated in a press release. “In light of a warming climate, protecting our most precious resource and planning for New Mexico’s future is more important than ever. I am grateful to Mike for his continued commitment to New Mexico’s water future and look forward to his leadership at the Office of the State Engineer.”
The Office of the State Engineer is charged with administering the state’s water resources, including overseeing agricultural diversions, dams and other infrastructure. The state engineer has authority over the supervision, measurement, appropriation and distribution of all surface and groundwater in New Mexico, including streams and rivers that cross state boundaries. Hamman’s career has been focused on water resource management at local, state and federal levels. He said his professional path was informed by his experience growing up in Taos in the 1970s.
“My parents owned the El Pueblo Motor Lodge on the north end of town right by the [Taos] Pueblo boundary, and there was an acequia that ran through our property and we irrigated off of it,” Hamman said. “I used to have to go up and open the gate and schedule water with people, and oftentimes you have to go back up and see why the water’s not there anymore and hold what I call ‘ditch bank negotiations’ — I learned that early in life.”
Hamman said he “fell in love with the whole notion of working with people in water, and how important it is to the community. Everybody—at least up in Taos back in those days — felt it as the lifeblood for the community as opposed to it being just a simple commodity that you use. That was ingrained in my psyche early in life and continues to be that way for me throughout my career.”
New Mexico and the northern Rio Grande Valley will face a number of water resource challenges in the coming years, not the least of which are the myriad effects of climate change — such as reduced snowpack, increased evaporation due to drought and rising temperatures and surface water shortages, as well ongoing litigation with Texas over a 1938 water sharing agreement.
In Taos County, Hamman said a number of priority water issues need to be dealt with and dealt with fairly.
“I think the implementation of the Abeyta settlement continues to be an important component for the Taos area, and there’s always that issue of development versus keeping agriculture in production,” Hamman said. “That balance is a part of what water rights administration is all about, and the State Engineer’s Office will be involved in those types of things.
“We don’t pick winners and losers,” he added. “We analyze the water availability and issue permits in the context of sustainability for the region and the good of the public welfare.”
Peter Vigil, director of the Taos Soil and Water Conservation District, said stewardship of acequias is the district’s top priority, followed by the solvency of the state Irrigation Works Construction Fund, which is administered by the ISC.
“The solvency of that fund is of paramount concern,” Vigil said. “It’s appropriated by the Legislature every year, and it’s in danger of becoming insolvent.”
Vigil echoed Hamman’s comments about the cultural significance of water and water rights in Northern New Mexico.
“We value water in a spiritual way up here in the north,” he said. “It’s not just a commodity, it’s a treasure.”
“In my opinion the people of Northern New Mexico own the surface water,” Vigil continued. “And we would like to keep it that way. We don’t want to see surface water transferred and sold to urban cities and development further south. We want to keep our water here.”
Rachel Conn, deputy director of Amigos Bravos, said the Taos based water conservation organization hopes Hamman will lead a more holistic approach to water management across the state.
“Amigos Bravos supports a more coordinated and comprehensive approach to water policy instead of the silos that currently exist,” Conn said. “We would like to see more communication between agencies such as the Office of the State Engineer, the Interstate Stream Commission, the New Mexico Environment Department, and the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.”
Aging infrastructure across the state is also an issue, but Hamman said the Office of the State Engineer has identified several reservoirs and dams as priority candidates on which to spend “new federal [infrastructure] money.” He said he is optimistic that a significant increase in annual funding for his agency contained in the General Appropriation Act passed in the House last week will help fill important OSE and ISC staff positions which have been vacant for years.
“There’s some significant improvements in the bill for the water agencies in particular, so we’re quite pleased with the increases and we’re thankful for them,” Hamman said. “It’s a tough job for the Legislature to balance all the needs but the governor really stepped up and promoted a good request that spurred the House to do a good job for us.”
Prior to beginning his work as state water advisor, Hamman served as the chief engineer and chief executive officer for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, overseeing river flood control, drainage and irrigation that includes managing 30,000 acres of bosque lands and coordinating with multiple jurisdictions at the local, state and tribal levels to deliver water to 60,000 acres of irrigated farmlands, according to the release from the governor’s office.
Hamman also worked for 17 years with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, overseeing 300 employees and managing multiple federal water projects from the San Luis Valley in Colorado to Fort Quitman in Texas. He also worked for the Interstate Stream Commission, the City of Santa Fe and the Jicarilla Apache Nation, where he was instrumental in the development of the Nation’s $45 million water and wastewater treatment and delivery systems project. Hamman served on the Interstate Stream Commission from 2019.
Hamman’s predecessor, John D’Antonio, stepped down from the position in December, citing a chronic lack of funding and understaffing as insurmountable obstacles to the agency’s mission. John Romero, director of the Water Rights Division of the Office of the State Engineer, served as acting state engineer in the interim.
Around the time D’Antonio announced his resignation in mid November, Lujan Grisham named Hamman state water advisor, at which time Hamman stepped away from leading the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and resigned his post as an ISC commissioner.
As state engineer, Hamman will automatically serve as secretary of the Interstate Stream Commission.
Hamman was originally appointed to the nine-member ISC by Lujan Grisham in 2019. He noted that, in his capacity as state water advisor, he and ISC Director Rolf Schmidt-Petersen recently “recommended three new names to be appointed [by Gov. Lujan Grisham] to the Interstate Stream Commission,” which currently has three vacancies.
The governor’s office has not offered a timeline for the appointments.
‘I think the implementation of the Abeyta settlement continues to be an important component for the Taos area, and there’s always that issue of development versus keeping agriculture in production. That balance is a part of what water rights administration is all about, and the State Engineer’s Office will be involved in those types of things.’ MIKE HAMMAN State engineer, the state’s top water authority