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Be aware that Western Water law is entirely different in concept and execution than Eastern Water rights. Before buying any land where you will have to provide your own water, talk to an attorney familiar with the subject.
It is illegal to transport water rights across state lines. El Paso has been in the process of suing NM for more than 20 years to try and get our water. There's approximately 3000 acres of farmland in southern Dona Ana County (Las Cruces) owned by the City of El Paso Water Utilities Board in anticipation of winning that lawsuit. IMO they won't.
Water in Cruces is not an issue per say. It's the desert and it only makes sense to conserve for the future but our acquifers are far from empty and we aren't going to run out in any of our lifetimes. Considering that technology will solve it before (most likely) I for one am not at all worried. That said the water sucks and I can't drink it. Talk about hard this water is in the diamond catagory of the hardness scale. Yuckk!
In a place that gets 10 inches a year of rainfall if y'all are going to buy enough barrels to make it work by collecting, I'm buying in stock in the cooperage industry.
Greg is correct as well. NM is currently in the process of adjudicating water rights. The law gives priority to time of use and continued use. ie the longer you prove you've been using water (surface or ground) the more priority your given in the event of a shortage. The part of the law that is really stupid is the "use it or lose it" clause. Water's very valuable. Farmers have priority going way back because the Mesilla Valley was first settled for ag. Most of them realize they will be selling their water rights in the future just as their farm land will probably be developed at some point. They are forced by the clause to use every bit they have access to which eliminates the motivation to use more conservtion friendly forms of irrigation. This law must be changed and the farmers must be allowed to "bank" water rights for sale to municipalites and community water districts at such time as the market makes it feasible for them to do so.
Banking the water rights is a good idea. Wasting water so you will have enough to not waste in the future is not so good an idea.
I am familiar with, but not an expert in, Eastern (riparian) water law, and the very precepts of Western (prior appropriation) law are a puzzlement. Believe me, I will check out the water rights attached to any property before I purchase.
I live in NM now, and I've lived in drier areas. I've also survived comfortably on 10 gallons per week, including drinking, washing, etc... though of course that isn't "normal" living. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I looked into water catchment when my wife and I were looking at buying some land that had poor well prospects. Seems like it was ~1500 gal per month (avg) would fall on the roof of a 1500 sqft house. Of course you'd want a big tank and for dry spells you'd need to haul some in, but we figured we could live comfortably enough on that amount.
I guess you can worry about water if you want, but I'm not.
Let's see how much water you would collect. Let's say you have a 2,000 square foot roof. For this example, assume 12 inches (1 foot) of annual precipitation (a lot for many places in New Mexico, but we'll go with it). Now let's convert that to acre-feet, then to gallons.
.045914 acre x 1 foot of water = .045914 acre/feet of water falling on the roof per year.
1 acre foot of water = 325,851.428571 gallons
.045914 x 325,851.428571 gallons = 14,961.14 gallons per year
14,961.14 / 365 = 40.99 gallons per day
This assumes that EVERY drop of that 12 inches of precipitation is captured, that there is no evaporation loss, and no leakage of the water in getting from the roof to where it stored and to where it is used in the house. Of course, that precipitation does not fall evenly in the year, so adequate storage much also be provided.
Current typical indoor water use per day in the US is about 50 gallons per person per day.
Now for the second part:
New Mexico water law, like most Western states is based on the "doctrine of prior appropriation" or, as it is commonly referred to, "First in use, first in right." Under this water law, unlike the water law in most of the rest of the Midwest and Eastern United States, water falling on or originating on a landowner's property does not automatically confer a right for him or her to use it. If someone else has adjudicated a claim on that water--perfecting a right to use it--that person has the "senior" right to the water. If the landowner does not perfect a right to the water rising on his property (or passing through it), he will most likely have no right to either use it or store it. You might have the Rio Grande River running right through the middle of your property and not have a right to use a single drop of it. People not from the Rocky Mountain West frequently have no understanding of this.
There is an extensive thread on water over on the Colorado Forum ( Colorado and the West is running out of water . . . ). While Colorado water law differs some from New Mexico, there is a lot of commonality in both the law and the water problems confronting both states.
A brief synopsis of water law in various western states can be found here:
Here are the two big dogs in water rights in my part of the state. The state engineer will also be the big dog in your part of the state, in addition to whomever is in charge of the local ditches/reservoirs/wells etc.
Rest assured that not a single drop of water falls in or passes through New Mexico that has not been spoken for. Water rights and allocation may be invisible to many, but nothing in New Mexico is exempt from it's influence, and nothing happens unless and until the concerns of water are first resolved.
There is no question that there will be water shortages in the future, especially as climatic conditions change. One of the predicted effects of the slightly warming temps we're experiencing is an increase in the size of the Hadley Circulation - essentially this will extend the dry areas of the southwest northwards, so the arid/semi-arid regions of the southwest will become much larger.
Personally I think the water-shortage hype is overdone, though. We've barely scratched the surface of what can be done in terms of conservation. When it comes down to it, most people across the southwest are water-wasters. All the water-guzzling lawns [aside form buffalo, grama, etc] could be converted to xeriscape. Most people take showers that are way too long. You don't have to flush after every pee-pee. Not letting the water run when you're doing dishes by hand, or brushing your teeth. Eliminating swimming pools & car washes, improving manufacturing processes to use less water, installing proper rainwater collections systems city-wide, etc.
I'm not saying we should start doing these things now, nor that the city/state should enforce them. I think it would be wise - but when it comes down to it, there are just too many people who would refuse to do their share. But these things could be done, and when they are, it will seriously reduce our water needs. There will come a time when water is expensive enough that residents will willingly do them.
I am an organic farmer living in northern Az. I have a well on my property, and my usage of water is totally unlimited.(of course i have been grandfathered in to this unlimited usage amount) This is not to say that i use an abundant amount, because i believe that water is a very, very precious resource. I like to plant drought tolerant and native plants on my farm and in my business as a landscape designer. But to the point, is water an issue in New Mexico? Of course it is! Because i happen to love the state of NM, and have spent the last few years dreaming of moving there and setting up a small farm, i have searched out land and properties state wide to try to find something that will work for me. It is very difficult to find an affordable piece of land where the water issue does not come into play. I realized that my search must include a parcel of land with an irrigation ditch that has transferable water rights with it. You must be careful when buying land, even with an irrigation ditch, because if the previous owners did not use their allocated water rights, it may be very difficult to reinstate the water rights. I have also discovered that the water in many places in NM has been severely polluted by runoff from the los alamos labs and nuclear testing around alamagordo. These pollutants don't just disappear overnite or with clorine treatment. i would never be able to truely say that the produce i grow is organic, much less would i ever drink this water and hope for good health. So with this all said, and my years of research and traveling in NM, i made the decision based upon what i learned about the water to just stay in arizona! And Thankfully, NM is less than a days drive away for when i really need my dose of Enchantment!
I am an organic farmer living in northern Az. I have a well on my property, and my usage of water is totally unlimited.(of course i have been grandfathered in to this unlimited usage amount) This is not to say that i use an abundant amount, because i believe that water is a very, very precious resource. I like to plant drought tolerant and native plants on my farm and in my business as a landscape designer. But to the point, is water an issue in New Mexico? Of course it is! Because i happen to love the state of NM, and have spent the last few years dreaming of moving there and setting up a small farm, i have searched out land and properties state wide to try to find something that will work for me. It is very difficult to find an affordable piece of land where the water issue does not come into play. I realized that my search must include a parcel of land with an irrigation ditch that has transferable water rights with it. You must be careful when buying land, even with an irrigation ditch, because if the previous owners did not use their allocated water rights, it may be very difficult to reinstate the water rights. I have also discovered that the water in many places in NM has been severely polluted by runoff from the los alamos labs and nuclear testing around alamagordo. These pollutants don't just disappear overnite or with clorine treatment. i would never be able to truely say that the produce i grow is organic, much less would i ever drink this water and hope for good health. So with this all said, and my years of research and traveling in NM, i made the decision based upon what i learned about the water to just stay in arizona! And Thankfully, NM is less than a days drive away for when i really need my dose of Enchantment!
This something of an overstatement. Even if we were to agree for purposes of discussion that there is radioactive runoff coming from these two sources, then we would still need to assume that it flows downhill. Any runoff from Los Alamos would flow down to the Rio Grande and then south in the Rio Grande. Alamagordo of course is very far south.
So there are large areas of the state that could not possibly be contaminated by run-off from these two sources. Now you might argue that the underground water is contaminated. But I live 20 miles east of Los Alamos, had the well tested thoroughly before I bought and found no trace of contamination. So it is very hard for me to imagine that it is turning up in Taos or Las Vegas.
Go to the museum on White Sands and read up on all the testing there not even including Trinity site. It is pretty scary and I took note as I live south, southeast of White Sands between it and the Rio Grande. It is actually quite a big area. White Sands alone is over 100,000 acres I think and it butts up to Fort Bliss Reservation which is at about 1 million acres right now. I don't even know the size of Holloman. And all that is north of the Rio Grande.
Also, I have often heard of contamination of ground water in NM and not entirely from these man made sources but also because this state has a lot of naturally occurring contaminants which I think arsenic is one (I could be wrong here).
I also read after the Los Alamos fire that testing revealed there was contamination of ground water in certain areas.
I don't think the poster was overstating his/her concerns too greatly here. I think this is an issue New Mexico has kept quiet about and I think there could be a little more investigation of this but as you all say, water is gold here and I don't think it would behoove the powers that be to start looking seriously at water quality when there is only so much of it to go around.
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