Water-hoarder Augustin Plains Ranch—corporatocracy vs. the people

This fight with Augustin Plains Ranch, owned by Italian billionaire Bruno Modena, has been going on for 17 years and there is no end in sight.

Augustin Plains Ranch first applied to the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer in 2007 to use 54,000 acre feet a year of water. They own land which has appurtenant water rights. They claim, but have never proved, that a vast reserve of unappropriated water exists—an underground lake. If it does, it’s only recharging source is rain water, because there is no connecting stream or river.

The yearly amount they want to pump out, 54,000 acre feet, would be pumped out from 37 wells on their property and then piped north for only vaguely described commercial and municipal uses.

That’s been the vague plan APR has put forth over and over again, which has caused its application for water use to be rejected again and again by the OSE and courts for its vagueness.

The latest rejection was August 23, when Seventh District Court Judge Roscoe Woods gave his final order that stated the Office of the State Engineer was correct in denying the Augustin Plains Ranch’s application to use 54,000 acre feet a year because it was “speculative.”

Woods based his decision on the New Mexico Constitution, which says water belongs to the people for their “beneficial use.” The OSE loans it out to those parties having first proposed a “beneficial use,” and then lets them keep that water right if they use it. “Use it or lose it,” is how it’s supposed to work in New Mexico.

But APR has successfully hoarded and not used its appurtenant water rights for 17 years, tying up private and public entities in picayune legal battles that give it a “stay,” or stop the clock on its obligation to use their water or lose it.

This is corporatocracy winning. APR has 30 days to appeal Woods’ decision to the New Mexico Court of Appeals, and no doubt it will. When that application’s legal staying power is exhausted, APR will file another slightly amended application to the OSE, birthing another legal tar baby.

And the people will continue to pay the legal fees to fight APR off, round after round. The City of T or C, State Office of the Engineer, Catron County and Navajo Nation are a few of the parties in this most recent law suit which legal fees are paid for by the people.

APR paying its lawyers, on the other hand, is no doubt cheaper than actually creating a business to actually use the water or even to draw up a plan to use the water. I’m sure Modena’s room full of lawyers have worked out the tax write-offs and cost-savings for this ongoing legal maneuvering that holds the 54,000 acre feet a year in limbo.

The Food and Water Watch Organization, in a recent article, lays out the reasons the New Mexican peoples’ water is increasingly under threat from corporations: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2023/07/06/new-mexico-water-crisis/

We have weak water laws, corporations have been favored over people, water records are a mess or nonexistent, and our leaders are increasingly falling for corporate scams purporting to fix our water shortage, scams such as “water market systems,” [like APR’s vague proposal], desalination and water recycling, the above article explains.

Time is on APR’s side, because drought and climate change are bringing the threat of water shortage very close, while bad government management piddles around with minor fixes to water administration.

APR, if its 54,000 AFY estimate is accurate, sits on enough water to support more than 108,000 households comfortably—each household using the national average ½ acre foot of water a year. The whole state uses about 2 million AFY with about 52 percent coming from surface water and 48 percent coming from groundwater, according to an OSE 2015 report. APR’s 54,000 AFY would be nearly 4 percent of the state’s groundwater use for the year.

Water, being life and all that, gives APR a Damocles sword to play with, backed by money. One of these applications may slip by a new State Engineer and then a district judge and then an appellate judge. If that happens, if APR can control and charge what the market demands for life-giving water, corporatocracy will have arrived. No money, no water.

Good for Woods for doing his part in turning APR down, again, but it’s tragic New Mexico allows a corporation like APR to threaten the people’s purse and water supply.