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A MEMORIAL

URGING THE CULTURAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT TO INCLUDE THE ACEQUIA

DE CHAMITA IN THE NEW MEXICO STATE REGISTER OF CULTURAL

PROPERTIES AND NOMINATE THE ACEQUIA DE CHAMITA FOR PLACEMENT

ON THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES.

WHEREAS, the colonist Don Juan de Onate called upon his

men and fifteen Ohkay Owingeh villagers to dig the first

irrigation system of Iberian-Arabic design in New Mexico on

August 11, 1598; and

WHEREAS, the Acequia de Chamita, as the irrigation

system has become known, is still in common use by the people

of Ohkay Owingeh and the community of Chamita; and

WHEREAS, the map dated 1602 and created by Enrico

Martinez depicting "Onate's kingdom" indicates the settlement

of Sama at San Gabriel del Yungue, now known as Chamita; and

WHEREAS, in "Monarquin Indiana", the seventeenth century

Franciscan scholar Fray Juan de Torquemada states in 1602 the

importance of the new form of irrigated agriculture and

describes the settlement of San Gabriel del Yunque, located

between the Rio Chama and the Rio Grande, as having irrigated

fields of wheat, barley and corn and within the settlement the

remainder of the food for the community is cultivated in

gardens, all served by the Acequia de Chamita; and

WHEREAS, the gravity-flow earthen canal system for

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irrigation that was constructed along the Rio Grande and Rio

Chama began the spread of civil and social "water democracy"

throughout the southwestern part of what became the United

States and the acequias served as the lifeblood for community

development for thousands of civilian settlers or pobladores;

and

WHEREAS, in New Mexico alone, the system of acequias has

grown to exceed one thousand acequias within the state, all

carrying the imprint of the Acequia de Chamita; and

WHEREAS, a map of the town of Chamita from the 1877

field notes of United States surveyors Sawyer and McElroy show

the Chamita land grant indicating the Acequia de Chamita

starting from the Rio Chama and emptying into the Rio Chama

above its confluence with the Rio Grande; and

WHEREAS, very few significant changes since it was first

constructed are seen today along the four-mile course of the

Acequia de Chamita, with the exception of the replacement of

the earthen diversion dam by a concrete diversion,

installation of relatively modern headgates and a change of

the point of egress to a place on the Rio Grande rather than

the Rio Chama; and

WHEREAS, site records of a survey completed by the state

highway and transportation department in 1994 and another

survey completed by the army corps of engineers in 1995, both

note the historic importance of the Acequia de Chamita and

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recommend the acequia for inclusion on the national register

of historic places; and

WHEREAS, the legal description of the location of the

Acequia de Chamita is in the bylaws of the acequia, stating

that the acequia "provides irrigation water from the Rio Chama

for the communities of Chamita and San Juan Pueblo (once again

called Ohkay Owingeh); and

WHEREAS, the four-hundred-nine-year history of the

Acequia de Chamita places it as the oldest Euro-Arabic water

management system still in use in the United States; and

WHEREAS, 2007 has been declared by Governor Bill

Richardson to be the "year of water" and that will bring

greater focus to protecting and insuring the survival of New

Mexico's acequias;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that recognition be

given to the social, cultural, historic and ethno-hydraulic

engineering importance of and the long-lived contribution to

New Mexico of the Acequia de Chamita; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the house of representatives

urge the cultural affairs department to place the Acequia de

Chamita on the New Mexico register of cultural properties and

further consider nominating the Acequia de Chamita for the

national register of historic places; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be

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transmitted to Governor Bill Richardson, Governor Earl Salazar

of Ohkay Owingeh, the secretary of cultural affairs, the

acequia commission and the state and national register

coordinator.