Water Law Commons^™

2023 Update: A Water Rights Manual For Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Associations, Utton Center, Zackeriah Carpenter, Gregory Chakalian, Darcy S. Bushnell

Publications

This is the 2023 update of the Water Rights Manual. The archival version is also available in our digital repository. 

The Utton Center prepared this Water Rights Manual to assist Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Associations (MDWCAs) with the development, protection and management of their water rights.

This manual provides an introduction to and defines Water Rights in New Mexico, as well as to acquire and have recognized Water Rights. This document also covers water management and planning, and provides additional resources.

A Bold Plan For Saving The Colorado River, Mark Squillace

Publications

No abstract provided.

Facing New Mexico's 21st Century Water Challenges; A Report Of The New Mexico Water Policy And Infrastructure Task Force, New Mexico Water And Infrastructure Task Force N/A

Publications

No abstract provided.

Restoring The Public Interest In Western Water Law, Mark Squillace

Publications

American Western states and virtually every country and state with positive water resources law are in perfect agreement about the wisdom of treating their water resources as public property. Not surprisingly, this has led most Western states to articulate a goal of managing these resources in the public interest. But the meaning of the term “public interest,” especially in the context of water resources management, is far from clear. This Article strives to bring clarity to that issue. It begins by exploring three theoretical approaches that might be used for defining the public interest in water resources law before urging …

Savior Of Rural Landscapes Or Solomon's Choice? Colorado's Experiment With Alternative Water Transfer Methods For Water (Atms), Lisa Dilling, John Berggren, Jennifer Henderson, Douglas Kenney

Publications

This article focuses on the emerging landscape for Alternative Transfer Methods (ATMs) in Colorado, USA. ATMs are developing within a legal landscape of water rights governed by prior appropriation law, growing demand for water in urban centers driven by population growth, and an aging rural farm population whose most valuable asset may include senior water rights. Rural-urban water transfers in the past have been linked to the collapse of rural economies if pursued to the extreme extent of “buy-and-dry,” where water rights were purchased outright and permanently removed from agricultural land (e.g. Crowley County). This article focuses on the emerging …

Pueblo Indian Water Rights: Charting The Unknown, Richard W. Hughes

Publications

This article examines the so-far-unsuccessful efforts to judicially define and quantify the water rights appurtenant to the core land holdings of the 19 New Mexico Pueblos, many of whose lands straddle the Rio Grande. It explains that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has squarely held that Pueblo water rights are governed by federal, not state law, and are prior to those of any non-Indian appropriator, but also that the Tenth Circuit acknowledged that it could not say how those rights should be characterized. Part I of the article examines the course of the cases that have sought to achieve …

Marketing Conserved Water, Mark Squillace, Anthony Mcleod

Publications

Water law scholars have long supported water markets for addressing critical water needs, especially in arid regions like the western United States, and that support seems to be growing among policymakers as well. But translating academic theories about water markets to the field has proved challenging. To be sure, water can be transferred from one use to another use in all western states, but water markets in those states are not presently capable of providing prospective buyers with a reliable source of water when and where they need it. The reasons are myriad, but are primarily related to the high …

Optimizing Reservoir Operations To Adapt To 21st Century Expectations Of Climate And Social Change In The Willamette River Basin, Oregon, Kathleen M. Moore

Publications

Reservoir systems in the western US are managed to serve two main competing purposes: to reduce flooding during the winter and spring, and to provide water supply for multiple uses during the summer. Because the storage capacity of a reservoir cannot be used for both flood damage reduction and water storage at the same time, these two uses are traded off as the reservoir fills during the transition from the wet to the dry season. Climate change, population growth, and development in the western US may exacerbate dry season water scarcity and increase winter flood risk, creating a need to …

Spring 2015 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.

They Had Nothing, Charles Wilkinson

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No abstract provided.

Introduction To Big Horn General Stream Adjudication Symposium, Charles Wilkinson

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No abstract provided.

Managing Complex Water Resource Systems For Ecological Integrity: Evaluating Tradeoffs And Uncertainty, Richard Morrison

Publications

Water resource systems often contain numerous components that are intertwined or even contradictory, such as power production, water delivery, recreation, and environmental needs. This complexity makes it difficult to holistically assess management alternatives. In addition, hydro climatic and ecological uncertainties complicate efforts to evaluate the impacts of management scenarios. We need new tools that are able to inform managers and researchers of the tradeoffs or consequences associated with flow alternatives, while also explicitly incorporating sources of uncertainty. My research addresses this limitation using two modeling approaches: stochastic system dynamics modeling and Bayesian network modeling. I developed a stochastic system dynamics …

The End Of Sustainability, Melinda Harm Benson, Robin Kundis Craig

Publications

It is time to move past the concept of sustainability. The realities of the Anthropocene warrant this conclusion. They include unprecedented and irreversible rates of human-induced biodiversity loss, exponential increases in per-capita resource consumption, and global climate change. These factors combine to create an increasing likelihood of rapid, nonlinear, social and ecological regime changes. The recent failure of the Rio +20 provides an opportunity to collectively reexamine--and ultimately move past--the concept of sustainability as an environmental goal. We must face the impossibility of defining--let alone pursuing--a goal of "sustainability" in a world characterized by such extreme complexity, radical uncertainty and …

The End Of Sustainability, Melinda Harm Benson, Robin Kundis Craig

Publications

No abstract provided.

Spring 2014 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.

Water Governance Challenges In New Mexico's Middle Rio Grande Valley: A Resilience Assessment, Melina Harm Benson, Dagmar Llewellyn, Ryan Morrison, Mark Stone

Publications

No abstract provided.

Jump In Before It's Too Late: Protecting And Increasing Streamflows In New Mexico, Sharon Wirth

Publications

Freshwater ecosystems need adequate streamflow to supply clean water for humans and maintain healthy habitat for wildlife. Over-appropriation, overuse, climate change, and drought plague New Mexico's rivers, taxing many rivers beyond sustainability. Despite the myriad of problems caused by little or no water in our rivers, policies and procedures to protect and increase streamflows in New Mexico are limited. While most Western states have made demonstrable progress in alleviating various legal and technical barriers to protecting and increasing streamflows, New Mexico has made only limited, recent progress towards solutions for our drying rivers. This article takes a critical look at …

Developing The Law Of The River: The Integration Of Law And Policy Into Hydrologic And Socio-Economic Modeling Efforts In The Willamette River Basin, Adell Louise Amos

Publications

A legal and policy infrastructure -- referred to as a "law of the river" -- exists for every river basin in the U.S. an can be as important as natural processes in terms of managing the future of the resource. Because of the way that water law and policy have evolved in the U.S., this infrastructure involves a matrix of state and federal law that governs the choices that policymakers, end users, and agencies make. This "law of the river" provides the context in which decisions are made and not made. It also draws the boundaries within which decision makers …

Joe M Stell Ombudsman Program - Taos Settlement Technical Work, Peggy Barroll

Publications

No abstract provided.

Groundwater Challenges In Spain: Lessons From The Western Mancha Aquifer, Pedro Martinez-Santos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Frameworks For Amending Reservoir Water Management, Ethan Mower, Leandro E. Miranda

Publications

Managing water storage and withdrawals in many reservoirs requires establishing seasonal targets for water levels (i.e., rule curves) that are influenced by regional precipitation and diverse water demands. Rule curves are established as an attempt to balance various water needs such as flood control, irrigation, and environmental benefits such as fish and wildlife management. The processes and challenges associated with amending rule curves to balance multiuse needs are complicated and mostly unfamiliar to non-US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) natural resource managers and to the public. To inform natural resource managers and the public we describe the policies and process …

Winter 2013 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.

Archival: A Water Rights Manual For Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Associations, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law, Zackeriah Carpenter, Gregory Chakalian, Darcy S. Bushnell

Publications

The Utton Center prepared this Water Rights Manual to assist Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Associations (MDWCAs) with the development, protection and management of their water rights.

This manual provides an introduction to and defines Water Rights in New Mexico, as well as to acquire and have recognized Water Rights. This document also covers water management and planning, and provides additional resources.

Hero For The People, Hero For The Land And Water: Reflections On The Enduring Contributions Of David Getches, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Water Transfers For A Changing Climate, Mark Squillace

Publications

The prior appropriation doctrine that dominates the water laws of the Western United States was perhaps the inevitable consequence of the need to manage water resources in a region where the demand for water often exceeds the supply. This doctrine has proved surprisingly clumsy at accommodating changing water needs during times of shortage. Economists have long viewed water markets as an attractive solution for reallocating water to meet the demands of an evolving community of water users. But most western states have been skeptical--sometimes even hostile--to proposed changes in historic water use patterns. This reluctance to encourage the transfer of …

Settler Colonialism And Reclamation: Where American Indian Law And Natural Resources Law Meet, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Three hours west of Phoenix, Arizona, the Colorado River Indian Tribes (“CRIT”), a federally recognized tribe that includes over 3,700 enrolled members of Mohave, Chemehuevi, Navajo, and Hopi descent, occupies a reservation nearly 300,000 acres in size. The CRIT was one of five tribes to have its water rights confirmed in the landmark case of Arizona v. California, and therefore has senior rights to 719,248 acre-feet of Colorado River water, nearly one-third of Arizona’s allocation. How the CRIT came to be a single federally recognized tribe composed of members from four indigenous peoples located on lands that were a fraction …

Selected Bibliography On Adjudications And New Mexico Water Management, Carol Romero-Wirth, Susan Kelly, Ernesto Longa

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No abstract provided.

Water Rights Management In New Mexico And Along The Middle Rio Grande: Is Awrm Sufficient?, Carol Romero-Wirth, Susan Kelly

Publications

No abstract provided.

Groundwater In New Mexico, Darcy Bushnell

Publications

No abstract provided.

Fall 2012 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.