By Rodd Cayton — Water is an important, yet complicated issue, and a pair of experts from the UNM Utton Center spent the evening of Nov. 4 trying to help Corrales residents get a better handle on the state of water rights in the village.
The New Mexico Constitution confirms existing water rights of any water users that existed when the constitution was established, Rin Tara told those in attendance at the Village Council Chambers. Tara, a staff attorney and water policy and governance analyst with the center, said the constitution also declares water to belong to the public and subject to appropriation by beneficial use and priority dates.
“So whoever puts their water to beneficial use first gets the most senior priority date,” she said. “And then the state engineer regulates who gets it.” Tara said the state has never legally what a beneficial use is, leaving a potentially broad range of permitted uses. “But we know what beneficial use isn’t,” she said. “Letting your water evaporate in a field of rocks and wasting it.”
Tara and Utton Center ombudsman Stephanie Russo Baca said New Mexico water rights are defined by six distinct components under state law: priority date, quantity, point of diversion, place of use, purpose of use, and source.
Because priority determines who receives water during scarcity, establishing the date of first beneficial use remains critical, from historic pre-1907 claims and sovereign Pueblo “prior and paramount” rights to modern permits issued by the Office of the State Engineer (OSE).
The six Middle Rio Grande Pueblos hold the most senior water rights in the region. Under federal law, these “prior and paramount” rights exist in perpetuity. That distinction isn’t subject to geographical placement, Russo Baca said: a junior user could be upstream of a senior user.
The importance of those rights has to do with the Pueblos retaining “drought immunity” — they don’t split the shortage with cities or other users and freedom from the Rio Grande Compact, meaning Pueblo water cannot be used to pay off New Mexico water debt owed to Texas.
A point of diversion, such as an irrigation ditch headgate or a groundwater well, is legally fixed and cannot be relocated or replaced without state approval, Tara said.
“Let’s say your well goes dry,” she said. “You can’t just drill a new well. That would be changing your point of diversion.You have to go through the state engineer, and they have a whole process for permitting a secondary well or an emergency well.”
Russo Baca and Tara clarified that under state law, permits for domestic wells, prevalent in Corrales, are strictly restricted to indoor household needs and minimal watering of non-commercial lawn, trees, or family gardens. Domestic permits, they warned, do not authorize commercial agriculture or surface ponds.
Russo Baca said the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD), which serves Corrales is in an unadjudicated system, meaning the district hasn’t gone through a legal process to determine large scale water-rights. The MRGCD does, however, have its own permitted water rights, and landowners within its jurisdiction can irrigate even if they don’t have their own water rights, provided they comply with the district’s rules and regulations.
The pair said that in an unadjudicated basin like the Middle Rio Grande, water rights must be formally declared with the OSE to be recognized. They also pointed out that simply declaring a right does not guarantee the state will accept it without historical evidence and hydrographic survey verification.
Other topics discussed included regulatory changes such as an impending OSE metering order and the appointment of a water master for the Middle Rio Grande, along with the process of buying water rights.
Near the end of the meeting, audience members noted the impending completion of the Corrales siphon replacement and questioned plans to dismantle the backup pumps that have delivered water to the village since the original siphon failed in 2022. Tara said keeping the pumps as insurance against a future service disruption might seem appealing, but operating them costs about $52,000 a month, making that option unfeasible.
Tara said the state engineer’s website has an online database on which known water rights are recorded. “As long as you select the Rio Grande Basin, you can look up your last name to see if you have a water right,” she explained. Tara advised property owners with a lot of questions to visit the state engineer’s office in person, because staff there can pull the relevant paper files. “The paper files are really fun because you can see the history of the water right,” she said. “You can see who has owned it in the past. You can see when it was originally filed for.”
Tara encouraged attendees to make appointments for Russo Baca’s “water rights office hours,” where they can discuss their specific water rights. The Nov. 12 first session is filled up, Tara said, but the ombudsman will be offering more office hours if there’s more interest. Anyone interested in scheduling a meeting may send an email to corralesfarmerscoop@gmail.com. The Utton Center is expected to host another informational meeting in December.