New group

requests

enforcement



By RUTH HEIDE

ALAMOSA — A group newly formed to protect surface water rights told the Rio Grande Water Conservation District board on Tuesday it intended to seek enforcement of the doctrine of prior appropriation.

Kelly Sowards, chairman of the new nonprofit group Three Rivers Preservation Association, told the board the water district had veered from its original course of protecting the rivers in the San Luis Valley and now seemed to be protecting well rights over surface water rights.

Sowards said he did not mean any animosity in sharing the Three Rivers’ statement with the water district board and did not want to ruin people, “but I do mean it that we need also to be able to live.” He said river rights “are barely hanging on.”

He said the Three Rivers is asking that the doctrine of prior appropriation - first in time, first in right - be enforced and that wells no longer be allowed to pump out of priority. He said the only way wells could then continue to pump would be if the well owners provided suitable augmentation acceptable to the water court.

“We have been patient far too long,” Sowards said.

He said Three Rivers is an organization in the southern part of the Valley representing surface water rights on the three rivers, Conejos, San Antonio and Los Pinos. Tom Martinez, who accompanied Sowards, is the vice chairman. Sowards said the surface water right owners are paying a mill levy to the Rio Grande Water Conservation District but do not feel the district is adequately representing them anymore. Instead, the district is providing legal and other assistance to efforts to protect well users, Sowards said.

Sowards said the southern end of the Valley is responsible for providing a great deal of the water required to meet the Rio Grande Compact obligations, “and that makes it important.” He said the only reason Conejos water users like him agreed to provide 40 percent of the Rio Grande Compact obligation was the promised production of the Closed Basin Project. “However, this project is yielding far less than even the minimum requirements.”

Sowards said the Rio Grande Water Conservation District was formed in 1967, and he served on the district’s board for more than 20 years. He said the district seems to have gotten away from its original mission of protecting the rivers. He said the majority of the board members now are well users who seem more concerned about protecting their property rights than surface water rights.

Sowards added the Conejos Water Conservancy Board also seems to be more concerned about protecting well users and is intent on forming a subdistrict whose main purpose is to keep the wells pumping. “We don’t believe these two boards are adequately representing our senior rights, surface rights,” Sowards said, “nor for that matter the best interest of other Valley surface rights.”

He added, “It is coming down to where well rule is replacing priority rule.”

He said many avenues have been tried to deal with the overappropriation in this basin. “Sadly, the only thing we haven’t tried and the only thing that will really get us out of this mess is the doctrine of prior appropriation, first in time, first in right, and this our surface rights will pursue.”