HOUSE JOINT MEMORIAL 11

48th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2007

INTRODUCED BY

Candy Spence Ezzell

FOR THE WATER AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE

A JOINT MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE OFFICE OF THE STATE ENGINEER TO ADOPT A PLAN FOR ACQUIRING WATER RIGHTS DATA FOR THE WATERS PROGRAM WITHOUT REMOVAL OF ORIGINAL FILES FROM THE ROSWELL DISTRICT 2 OFFICE OF THE STATE ENGINEER.

     WHEREAS, the Pecos valley water users organization is a quasi-public organization composed of representatives of public agencies, including county and municipal governments, irrigation and conservancy districts and others located in the lower Pecos valley of New Mexico; and

     WHEREAS, the primary focus of the Pecos valley water users organization is water use, availability and planning in the area included within the lower Pecos valley in New Mexico; and

     WHEREAS, the water rights files of the state engineer in the Roswell district 2 office contain pertinent documents relating to historical and current data regarding water use and supply in the area; and

     WHEREAS, the documents date back to the middle of the nineteenth century and consist of water well logs, hydrological studies and reports, reports of water use, transactional histories of water rights ownerships and transfers and similar data; and

     WHEREAS, information in the files of the district 2 office of the state engineer is critical to the continuing administration and understanding of the water situation in the area and is essential to the needs of individual water users on a daily and continuing basis; and

     WHEREAS, the state engineer has announced his intention to transfer the records and data from the Roswell district 2 office to Albuquerque for copying, restructuring and reassembling, and to then transfer the original data to Santa Fe for archival storage and to the WATERS database for access through the internet; and

     WHEREAS, the state engineer has not specified the length of time that the records would be missing from the Roswell district 2 office and thus unavailable for use by water users, researchers and abstracters, thereby making access to such information unreasonably difficult; and

     WHEREAS, the Pecos valley water users organization believes that the state engineer's proposed actions will undoubtedly result in loss of data, in realignment of data and in general confusion; and

     WHEREAS, it would appear that the better solution would be to copy or scan all of the files completely and intact, without realignment or restructuring, in the Roswell district 2 office, and then to forward the scanned data or copies to Albuquerque for further processing;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the office of the state engineer be requested to reconsider the plan for removal of the water rights files from the Roswell district 2 office and, instead, adopt a plan to acquire the data necessary for the WATERS database within that office, without restructuring or realignment into various categories, and to then forward the data to Albuquerque for further processing; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the state engineer and the governor.

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