Deep well one of several ongoing Abeyta projects
Taos Pueblo, acequias among beneficiaries of well redistribution
A 2,600-foot-deep test well that contractors are drilling near the Taos Valley Regional Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation Facility is just one of several groundwater development projects being implemented under the terms of the federal Taos Indian Water Rights Settlement Act, commonly known as the Abeyta Settlement, including several that are of significant benefit to local acequias.
The Rio Pueblo Well, as it’s titled in the settlement, is intended to provide domestic drinking water for the town’s regional water system; Francisco “French” Espinoza, public works director for the Town of Taos, explained that the project is funded through a $2.1-million U.S. Bureau of Reclamation grant provided via the settlement, which included an allocation of project money.
Groundwater
The Rio Pueblo Well will plunge deep into the aquifer beneath Taos to avoid impacting streams and acequias. Espinoza said it will draw water from below the level of underground water associated with the Rio Grande, thus avoiding compliance issues with the Rio Grande Compact between New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.
“The depth of the Rio Grande is 600 feet,” Espinoza said. “The depth of the deep wells is 2,100 feet; one reason for the deep wells is to not pull from the same source.”
At its most basic, the Abeyta settlement “limits additional groundwater pumping in the vicinity of Taos Pueblo and eastern Taos Valley,” and ensures that nontribal “future pumping increases will come from ‘settlement wells,’” i.e. deep supply wells developed away from the pueblo and its Buffalo Pasture wetland, according to a 2013 New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission report.
Daniel Suazo, director of the Taos Pueblo Water Administration Department, did not provide answers as of press time Wednesday (Feb. 15) to an emailed set of questions he requested in order to provide comment for this story. But Sam DesGeorges, president of the Taos Valley Acequia Association, told the Taos News that, not only does the Buffalo Pasture wetland have cultural and traditional significance to Taos Pueblo, it also serves as “a giant sponge that [stores and] releases water into Taos Valley.
“All these wetlands are important for aquifer recharge, irrigators and even flood protection; all these wetlands are important to our future,” DesGeorges said. “It’s incumbent on all of us to protect that — culturally, traditionally and hydrologically.
“So those wells [in El Prado] were a necessary thing,” in order to reduce the impacts El Prado’s previous groundwater pumping — from wells closer to the pueblo — had on the pasture,” DesGeorges continued.
The tribe’s priority water rights are codified in the Abeyta Settlement, along with the water rights
of a dozen mutual domestic water consumer associations, and El Prado Water and Sanitation District, which has already completed its two settlement-mandated water supply wells along US 64 just east of the Taos Regional Airport. The district did not return a message left seeking comment for this story as of press time.
The settlement also seeks to protect stream health and the water rights of some 54 Taos Valley acequias through several “mitigation wells” designed to pump groundwater up and into surface water systems. Taos is responsible for developing the Rio Fernando de Taos mitigation well in an area east of Fred Baca Park, for example. “We’re in the process of getting the design done and trying to find out where we can place that well” in compliance with the settlement, Espinoza said.
DesGeorges attends monthly meetings, where the parties to the Abeyta Settlement gather to discuss settlement proceedings, funding and other relevant issues.
“We get to know the settlement pretty intimately, and what we’re doing now is working cooperatively, basically to implement the settlement,” DesGeorges said, acknowledging that “there are folks, who are not parties to the settlement, that are not supportive of the settlement.”
Several years ago, there were organized protests in opposition to El Prado’s supply well implementation. William “Buck” Johnston characterized the well at the time as one of several “megawells” he claimed are part of the Abeyta Settlement projects, which he said were poised to “exploit” the underground aquifer, “along with our springs, wetlands and rivers.”
Espinoza told the Taos News, “It stands to reason that, as the population of the town grows and more people visit the community, we will need to produce more water to keep up with the demand.”
DesGeorges said that “the settlement is, in my mind, not up for debate. It is basically the law of the land at this point. And our charge, as well as the other parties, is to implement it, and to protect our water rights and protect our water, basically.”
Acequias
The Acequia Madre del Rio Chiquito is “in the process of implementing” a mitigation well project in Talpa that’s mandated by the settlement, DesGeorges said, adding that “the Llano Quemado Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association also has a project they’re in the process of implementing,” the Rio Grande del Rancho mitigation well.
DesGeorges said that, for acequias in the valley, the Abeyta Settlement projects are a lifeline. In addition to dwindling annual snowpack, the impacts of development and drought, as well as an aging acequia community, he is concerned about acequia commissions potentially allowing parciantes to apply to have their historic surface water rights convert to groundwater rights.
There are “several proposals across the valley to transfer irrigation rights to wells for the purpose of growing cannabis in greenhouses,” he said, explaining that once a right is converted to groundwater, it removes water from the greater acequia system.
“It would change the volume of water that can be legally diverted,” DesGeorges said. “At some point there’s a tipping point, because water flows in an acequia because it has a hydraulic push; volume kind of equates to this pressure. And so that tipping point occurs — we don’t know where that is — but when that volume can no longer make it down the acequia because they can’t divert it anymore, it doesn’t go anywhere. It cannot move.”