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<br />Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin <br /> <br />three criteria we define at the beginning of this chapter. As long as actual <br />resource allocations fall far short of these criteria, there will be strong <br />economic pressures for change. <br /> <br />d. Ownership of Some Resources Remains Poorly Defined.-Markets require <br />certainty about who owns the item being bought and sold. In some parts of <br />the Basin, however, there is considerable doubt about who owns what. <br />Numerous Native American claims on water and non-Indian federal reserved <br />water rights, such as those for national parks, wilderness areas, and <br />monuments remain unresolved and create deep and broad uncertainty <br />regarding the claims of others. The probability that Native Americans and <br />federal entities will receive legal substantiation that their claims predate <br />and supersede at least some of the claims of others in at least some places <br />within the Basin, can have a chilling effect on the establishment of markets <br />for water rights. The failure to resolve these claims-especially those of <br />Native Americans-also is regarded by many as grossly unfair. <br /> <br />,^ <br />k~ <br /> <br />fr <br /> <br />:, <br /> <br />Evidence of problems stemming, in part, from ambiguity of resource <br />ownership is readily available. Over the past decade the MRGCD, for <br />example, has diverted more water from the river, when it has irrigated less <br />than 60,000 acres, than Congress authorized it to divert as part of the <br />Middle Rio Grande Project in 1948, when it irrigated about 85,000 acres <br />(Miller 1996). MRGCD, rather than leaving water in the river, asserts that <br />it can divert enough water to irrigate almost 125,000 acres and, under some <br />interpretations of New Mexico's water law, it must divert this water to <br />solidify its water rights (DuMars et at 1993).7 In the spring of 1996, <br />MRGCD diverted even more water than it had for the same period oftime in <br />the past decade (Miller 1996). Some of the diversions took all the water in <br /> <br />!.", <br /> <br />k <br />-~, <br /> <br />~~.~ <br />~~; <br /> <br />\i <br /> <br />. i:~ <br />',' <br /> <br />"'- <br /> <br />, ( " -, G ... <br />" ",(,. h <br />\. ,~,l ,-.. ....,. <br /> <br />ot:. <br /> <br />): <br /> <br />7 MRGCD's diversion of water, despite the reduction in acreage, illustrates the limited <br />nature of water rights and the opportunities for the state to exercise its authority to increase <br />the efficiency of water usage. For a general discussion of these issues, see DeYoung (1993). <br />Tbe incentive for MRGCD to divert the water arises because the holder of a water right does <br />not have absolute, perpetual control over the water, but can lose the water right ifit is not <br />continually exercised by withdrawing water from the waterway and applying it to a use legally <br />recognized as a beneficial use. If the state determined that diverting water in excess of the <br />needs of the approximately 54,000 acres being irrigated were not consistent with the public <br />interest, it presumably would have the authority to prohibit excess diversions in the future, <br />Furthermore, if it determined that it would be in the public interest to encourage irrigation <br />technologies that use less water than the flood-irrigation that currently prevails, it <br />presumably could restrict MRGCD's diversions even further. <br /> <br />L-; <br /> <br />" <br />i....- <br /> <br />:-~~ <br />c',' <br /> <br />86 <br /> <br />< <br />~~ <br />t <br />]. <br />