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THE DE!'.","ER POST I:riday, September 3, 1999 CJ::) CD C\l ...; (:;;J c,j .Middle Rio Grande Conservancy. ... . - District tries conserving water :L lh. ASSOCi' led Pre.. - ALBUQUERQUE - The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy Oistriet ~trylng to shed its image as a wa- ~r waster. :::It recently installed the first 2,art of a 5300,000 metering system' to provide information to water lilanagers. State Engineer Tom Turney, wbo oversees water use tiroughout the state, calls tbe sys- I&m "exceptional progress." ""However, the district, a taxpay- !IT-funded political subdivision of !lie stat;, can't say bow mucb wa. m< farmers use. It bas no way to sav bow mucb is returned to the river or to make sure farmers don't take more than lbeir sbare. , It plans to add meters to mea-, sure bow mucb water returns to: lbe river after Irrigation, but that' will cost 5600,000. ' "We've got probably another; couple of years to go before we lin- ; Isb tbat svstem," clistrict biologist. Sterling Grogan said. "We're try.' lng to make our s~stem more ~lli. : cient, and metering Is tbe first. step." Individual farlllS don't bave me., ters, so kei!ping track of wbo takes I . bow mucb water is up to ditcb rid.. ers. Tbey schedule irrigation times for each farmer, keep ditches clear and monitor use. Tome Irrigator Lisa Robert points out, bowever: "It really de. pends on if you have a good ditch rider or not." Allbaugh district chiel engineer Subhas Shah acknowledged ditcb riders can make mistakes, he said it's possible to reliably estimate how much water goes to lbe land based on sucb tbings as type 01 crop and ditch now. The conservancy, which encom- passes a narrow ribbon of land along lbe Rio Grande from Cocbiti Oam to Bosque del Apache, is posi- tioning itself to become lbe pre- mier water broker for the middle Rio Grande valley, whicb holds about halllbe state's population. But no one knows how mucb wa-' ter the district owns. Its claims to water amount to roughly double; what's needed for larms the dis-! trict serves. It bas created a bank' to store and lease excess water, al.! though lbat basn.t been approved by state water administrators. Under New Mexico's "use-it-<lr. lose-it" doctrine. users kei!p only. water they put to use. Even though lbe district's permits are sufficient. to irrigate 123,000 acres of farm- land. the district may keep only the water it actually needs. The district bas never irrigated 123,000 acres. It irrigates between 50,000 and 60,000 acres today. The conservancy bas bever filed proof of its water needs. Instead, from tbe 1930s througb 1987, it an.: nually asked lor one-year exten-l sions for filing prool. In 1997, 10: years after tbe district stopped' asking for extensions, Turney ask.' .ed it to prove its needs. uThey don't bave the resOurces to do that immediately, so ,,,,€'re going to have to get them the re- sources," he said. It will take mil- lions of dollars and at least" two years for the district to do the his- torical, legal and survey work re- quired, be said. " .,' Calculating water rights .ts: im- portant because the district. Wants to use its water bank to mar~e,!.!lD' used water. Turney said be doesn't know wbere marketable water ..ill come from.