Unsettled Waters. Eric P. Perramond

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Oakland, California

      © 2019 Eric P. Perramond

      Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of Congress

      ISBN 978-0-520-29935-1 (cloth)

      ISBN 978-0-520-29936-8 (paperback)

      ISBN 978-0-520-97112-7 (e-edition)

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      Contents

       List of Illustrations, Maps, and Tables

       Preface

       Acknowledgments

       Introduction. The Cultures of Water Sovereignty in New Mexico

       PART ONE. UNSETTLED WATERS: HOW WATER ADJUDICATION WORKS, WHAT IT DOES, AND WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IT FAILS

      1. How Local Waters Become State Water

      2. Aamodt, Dammit! Big Trouble in a Small Basin

      3. Abeyta: Taos Struggles, Then Negotiates

      4. Local Settlements Connect What State Adjudication Severed

       PART TWO. THE PRODUCTION OF WATER EXPERTISE: THE ADJUDICATION-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

      5. Changing Measures: How Expert Metrics Change Water

      6. Working for the Adjudication-Industrial Complex

      7. New Water Agents and Actors in Civil Society

       PART THREE. ADJUDICATING THE UNKNOWN FUTURE OF NEW MEXICO’S WATER

      8. City Water, Native Water, and the Unknown Future

      9. Beyond Adjudication: Nature’s Share of Water

      10. Water Coda, with No End in Sight

       Notes

       References

       Index

Illustrations, Maps, and Tables

      ILLUSTRATIONS

      1. A hypothetical valley in New Mexico with acequias

      2. Simplified flowchart of the water rights adjudication process in New Mexico

      3. A mayordomo stands on the banks of the connecting canal that brings water from the Rio en Medio splitter box, agreed to in the 1897 convenio, to the upper ditches of the Chupadero Valley

      4. The historic 1897 convenio document that allowed sharing of water from the Rio en Medio stream to a ditch that connects to the upper reaches of the Rio Chupadero, New Mexico

      5. Photo of the statue of Pedro de Peralta and his colonial surveyor’s vara measuring stick

      6. Typical water flume device employed by the Office of the State Engineer in its Active Water Resource Management program

      7. Photo of map detail from the Taos Hydrographic Survey work done in the late 1960s

      8. One example of expert water: an abstract diagram and screenshot of the San Juan-Chama and Middle Rio Grande waters, flows, and depletions

      9. Tamara, a mayordoma on the upper Santa Barbara River, an unadjudicated watershed that is a tributary to the Rio Grande

      10. Chupadero residents installing a liner in their ditch so that water from the upper ditches will reach farther downstream and replenish well water near the village of Chupadero

      11. The dry bed of the Santa Fe River, in 2009, prior to the living river program enacted by the city to release up to one thousand acre-feet per year of water to the channel

      12. Released water in the Santa Fe River channel, summer 2015

      13. Colorado College students and Juan Estevan Arellano walk along the dry Acequia de la Junta y Ciénega ditch, on the lower Embudo River, in February 2014

      MAPS

      1. Interview locations included in Unsettled Waters

      2. Distribution of acequias in New Mexico

      3. Locations of completed and pending stream adjudications in New Mexico as of 2017

      4. Map of the Aamodt adjudication area, the Pojoaque River Valley, showing the four major pueblos

      5. Map of the San Juan-Chama Project

      6. Map