Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today introduced a package of bills that includes measures he wrote to settle a water rights claim in the Four Corners, construct a pipeline in eastern New Mexico and help water managers better plan for the future. The package could be voted on as soon as Sunday. 

One of the bills in the package is legislation Bingaman and Senator Tom Udall have introduced in the past to settle the Navajo Nation’s water rights claims in the San Juan River Basin.

The legislation, called the Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects, reflects a 2005 agreement between the State of New Mexico and the Navajo Nation, which needs congressional approval. It recognizes approximately 600,000 acre-feet per year of water to the Navajo Nation for agricultural, municipal, industrial, domestic and stock watering purposes. It also authorizes federal funding for the Navajo-Gallup Pipeline project and various water conservation projects in the basin. 

Under the proposal, the federal government would contribute funding over about two decades to construct the pipeline and perform other activities to implement the agreement. The bill authorizes $870 million to construct the project, although some of that cost will be paid by the State of New Mexico and the communities served. 

The measure also provides an assured source of funding to pay for the project, ensuring that settlement is implemented. It does this by setting aside surplus revenues in the Reclamation Fund to pay for the Navajo settlement, and future settlements. 

“Enacting this legislation would bring an end to years of litigation over water rights in the Four Corners area, giving certainty to the Navajo Nation and water users in Gallup, Farmington and other communities,” Bingaman said.

“It is shameful that 70,000 people on the Navajo Nation, located in the wealthiest nation on earth, do not have easy access to water, one of the most basic necessities of life,” said Udall. “This legislation will help eliminate this injustice while resolving conflict over water rights and ensuring that the city of Gallup will also have better access to water. After years of work on this legislation, I am proud to see it put on the path to passage in the Senate.”

The package also includes Bingaman’s Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System Authorization Act, which Udall also previously introduced and passed in the House. The measure authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to spend up to $327 million to assist the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Authority in the construction of the pipeline. The water will come from the Ute Reservoir, which was built on the Canadian River in 1959 as a sustainable water supply for eastern New Mexico. 

A few years after the reservoir was constructed, Congress authorized the study of a pipeline that would transport the water to eastern New Mexico communities that needed it. But it was only in the past few years, with an increasing concern about declining and degrading groundwater resources in the area, that the affected New Mexico communities began in-depth planning for the pipeline. 

Under the legislation introduced today in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the state and the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Authority (ENMRWA), which represents communities in eastern New Mexico that will benefit from the pipeline, will contribute a total of 25 percent of the cost of construction. The Authority will be responsible for operating and maintaining the pipeline.

“We’ve study this issue for years and now we are ready to proceed with the construction of a pipeline to serve eastern New Mexico communities,” Bingaman said. “This bill would provide long-term water security to generations of New Mexicans.”

“I am so pleased that after years of working on the critical Ute Pipeline legislation in the House and with Jeff Bingaman in the Senate, we are now closer to completing this project which has required the hard work of so many eastern New Mexico leaders,” said Udall. “The need for this project is undeniable because it will ensure that our Eastern region can continue to prosper for years to come”

Communities that will be served by the pipeline include: Grady, Clovis, Melrose, Texico, Portales, Elida, Cannon Air Force Base, and other potential locations in Curry, Roosevelt and Quay counties.

Another of the bills included in the package is one Bingaman and Udall introduced for the first time last year to improve the aging water infrastructure on pueblo lands.

The Rio Grande Pueblos Irrigation Infrastructure Improvement Act would give the Bureau of Reclamation the authority to work with any of New Mexico’s tribes to assess pueblo irrigation infrastructure and initiate projects to rehabilitate and repair the infrastructure as needed. Recognizing the limited resources available within Reclamation, the bill also directs the Commissioner of Reclamation to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers to identify opportunities to use the authorities of those agencies to collaborate on projects that make sense to all involved.

“New Mexico’s pueblos of the Rio Grande basin have historically sustained themselves through agriculture, irrigating their crops with water from the Rio Grande watershed. However, the number of Pueblo irrigation works in serious disrepair has placed this way of life in jeopardy. We must take action to restore these irrigation systems,” Bingaman said.

“New Mexico needs to get the most out of our scarce water supply, and to do this we need modern irrigation infrastructure,” said Udall. “By making a smart investment today, this legislation will help New Mexico tribes dramatically improve water conservation efforts for the future and tribal agriculture production by improving decaying irrigation systems.” 

The package includes Bingaman’s SECURE Water Act which aims to improve water management and increase the acquisition and analysis of water-related data to better understand critical water resources, particularly in arid parts of the country.

“Water is a precious and scarce resource, especially in the Southwest,” Bingaman, chairman of the Energy Committee, said. “Much more needs to be done to ensure that sufficient supplies of quality water are available to meet the basic needs of Americans, as well as for important economic and environmental uses. This bill will help our country begin to address this serious issue.”

Udall strongly supports the SECURE Water Act. “Water has always been a scarce resource in New Mexico and global warming threatens to make this already scarce resource all but disappear,” said Udall. “We must more fully understand the threat we face so that we can prepare before it is too late. This legislation begins the planning process so that we can secure New Mexico’s future.”

The bill requires an expansion of the National Streamflow Information Program and the development of a systematic groundwater monitoring program. The bill also directs the U.S. Geological Survey to formally establish a water use and availability assessment program consistent with recommendations made by the National Research Council.

The bill also takes into account the impacts of global climate change on water resources. Reports from the last several seasons indicate that increasing temperatures are resulting in less snowpack in many regions, changing the timing of snow-melt runoff and underscoring the need for more data like the kind prescribed in the bill.  At a Capitol Hill hearing on climate change and water held by the Energy Committee, the USGS indicated that current climate models are also projecting a long-term drying trend in the Southwest - the fastest growing region in the country.

To help address this issue the bill directs the Secretary of the Interior to establish an intra-governmental panel to link the scientific community and water managers to improve water availability forecasts and to implement adaptation strategies. The legislation also requires the Bureau of Reclamation to initiate a climate change adaptation program to develop strategies and conduct feasibility studies to address water shortages, conflicts and other impacts to water users and the environment. In addition, both Reclamation and the Department of Energy are directed to assess the effects of climate change on the water supplies needed for hydropower production, which represents the source of at least 7 percent of the nation’s electricity supply.

Additionally, the bill authorizes the Bureau of Reclamation to provide financial assistance to states, tribes and local entities to construct improvements or take actions to increase water use efficiencies in response to drought, climate change and other water-related crises.

Finally, the package contains a measure Bingaman wrote to continue a project that works to restore the Rio Puerco -- one of state’s largest tributaries to the Rio Grande. Specifically, the bill reauthorizes the Río Puerco Watershed Management Program, which Bingaman first wrote into law in 1996. Over the past decade, it has helped restore much of the 7,000 square-mile degraded watershed. The bill introduced today will authorize funding over the next ten years to continue watershed restoration efforts.