LAS CRUCES — Local farmers without meters on their wells will have a chance to comply with a state requirement for the devices before having their wells shut down, according to a settlement filed recently between the Elephant Butte Irrigation District and the state engineer.
The agreement calls for State Engineer John D'Antonio to amend an earlier order requiring meters by adding a progressive enforcement policy. Instead of immediately shutting down wells without meters, the state will send a series of warnings and allow a farmer an administrative hearing.
Just 39 percent of wells inspected so far in the lower Rio Grande area are outfitted with the meters, despite a Nov. 1, 2006 deadline to have them in place, according to the Office of the State Engineer.
D'Antonio wants wells metered to eventually enforce water rights. EBID, who took legal action against the metering order along with Salopek 6U Farms, has said it didn't disagree that meters are needed, but had objections to how the order would be carried out.
The settlement will end a legal skirmish between the irrigation district and the state engineer over how the metering order should be implemented. Outside groups still have a chance to protest the settlement terms during a Feb. 14 district court proceeding.
Also under the settlement, irrigation district farmers can apply for a low-interest loan from the state to pay for telemetry devices — technology that automatically records well data and feeds it to a Web site, said EBID Manager Gary Esslinger.
Money is available through the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission to help farmers comply with the metering order.
But Esslinger said initially, farmers could only use the money to buy telemetry devices.
"The biggest (problem) was that they wouldn't allow telemetry to be purchased with the re-loan money," he said. "You could buy a meter, but they wouldn't pay for the telemetry."
Esslinger said telemetry will give farmers and the irrigation district real-time data on well use, which will allow them to better manage river water and groundwater together.
"The farmer would know how much water that is producing, and he'd have the capability of looking at it on his home computer," he said.
Esslinger said telemetry also will help farmers report well data to D'Antonio's office, something they'll have to do quarterly because of the metering order.
Another benefit of the settlement, Esslinger said, is that farmers won't have to place a lien on their property to get a state loan — a condition of the original metering loan program. Instead, EBID will serve as a go-between, loaning the money to its farmers. They'll be indebted to EBID and won't be able to order irrigation water if they fail to repay the money, he said.
Farmers not part of EBID couldn't loan the money from the irrigation district and would have to go through the state.
EBID, Salopek 6U Farms and the state engineer's office said in early January they reached a settlement agreement, but needed time to work out more details. The specifics weren't revealed until Jan. 24 when the document was filed in 3rd Judicial District Court, nearly a week after a district judge had asked for it to be filed.
The settlement calls for the three parties to "refrain from denigrating each other concerning the metering order or other metering issues in the public arena."
Attorneys for EBID and the state engineer's office would not say much about the agreement terms.
State engineer attorney D.L. Sanders said differences with the irrigation district "didn't seem to be as great as they seemed."
"We have hopes to build on this to resolve some of our bigger issues we're currently working on," he said.
Sheldon Dorman, watermaster for the Lower Rio Grande Basin, said the state engineer's office inspected 2,654 wells in the area during an inspection blitz last spring. Of those, about 24 percent were metered. The office has inspected another 300 wells since then and has reinspected wells that initially weren't in compliance. Now, wells with meters total 1,166, and well owners are working to comply, he said.
Dorman said well owners won't face having their wells shut down if they're working to get a meter.
"We're working with people as long as they're working with us," he said. "We're not going to go out and shut anybody's well down — that's not going to happen."
Dorman said his office is still trying to get a handle on how many wells require meters in the basin. An estimated 10,000 wells exist, he said, but it's not clear yet how many are used for farming, commercial or municipal purposes — well types that fall under the order. Residential and livestock wells don't need meters.
Diana M. Alba can be reached at dalba@lcsun-news.com
For information on the metering loan program, contact: