Will New Mexico Water Policy Suffer the DTs?

So is New Mexico water policy really about to enter rehab?

Not that I know of; in this case I'm not referring to delirium tremens (aka 'the shakes') but to 'Doug Turner' who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor in next week's primary.

When most New Mexicans hear the name 'Turner' juxtaposed with 'water' they generally assume that 'Turner' is Dr. William 'Bill' Turner, erstwhile seeker of the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator, well-known hydrogeologist, water marketer, and, according to some, water gadfly.

Bill, whom I consider a friend, once filed a water-rights claim to the evaporation ( c. 180,000 AF/year, give or take) from Elephant Butte Reservoir because it was not being put to beneficial use. At the time he filed his claim one of my students was in the division of the New Mexico  Office of the State Engineer (OSE) that had to process the claim. She would become apopleptic at the mention of his name, and probably still does.

And don't tell Bill that 'groundwater' is one word.

But I digress, because this post is about his son, Doug Turner, who wrote the following piece in the print edition of the Sandoval Signpost, a suburban paper covering Sandoval County in the Albuquerque metropolitan area.

The copy pasted below is of poor quality; click on it for a larger copy, or on 'view this photo' to view a JPEG of the article.

View this photo

If you can't or don't want to read the article you can trust me: Turner not a fan of the OSE. He accuses it of engaging in social planning, riding roughshod over regional water plans, and in general, promoting Gov, Bill Richardson's social agenda and deviating from its constitutional mandate.

I cannot address the above because Turner does not give any specifics. But he does come down hard on the side of the marketplace. He said that, as governor, he will reduce

...burdensome regulations and let the market determine the flow of water. Only the marketplace can efficiently allocate and transfer water rights to different owners and for diverse uses.

Pretty clear to me. But then towards the end of the article he emphasizes the last of four simple actions he would take as governor:

Finally, I will be especially vigilant against ill-conceived water schemes [snide comment from me: like appropriating reservoir evaporation?] such as siphoning water into one community to the detriment of  another. Our communities must live within their water means. [emboldeing mine]

So will Gov. Doug decide which water schemes are ill-conceived?

The last sentence threw me. Water means? What does that mean? Remember, Turner is a market guy - let the market allocate water because it knows best. So if one community has the money and can buy or lease water rights for its own use from another community shouldn't it be allowed to do so even if that involves 'siphoning' the water? Isn't that a 'diverse use' Turner alluded to earlier? That's what the market is supposed to do.

Perhaps Turner would insist that Albuquerque surrender its consumptive right to almost 50,000 AF/year of San Juan-Chama water because it comes from the Colorado River basin, not Albuquerque's own Rio Grande basin. I would say the Albuquerque is living beyond its 'water means.' I suppose that Gov. Turner would also be opposed to a privately-funded  pipeline to take water from the Pecos River basin and sell it to Santa Fe in the Rio Grande basin.

In any case, Turner does not sound like much of a free marketer. More like, "Let the market do what it does, but I need to approve the transfer lest it is an 'ill-conceived water scheme.'' " Sounds like social planning to me. 

A marketer would let the market determine whether  a water scheme is ill-conceived. Right, Doug?

Perhaps 'DT" stands for 'dichotomy time.'

David Zetland, wherefore art thou?

[Note added on 12 June 2010: Turner lost, garnerng about 12% of the vote.]

"I'm an economist. If I didn't believe in markets they'd take away my degree." -- Don Reading

Comments

[Eric Perramond]

Great coverage Michael; a good and balanced analysis of what little rhetoric can mean when citizens or candidates refuse to be specific. Of course, avoiding specificity is usually how candidates get elected.
- And trying to claim evapotranspiration, frankly, as a private good is about as logical as trying to privatize nitrogen-fixing bacteria. I'm simplifying, of course, because protecting surface water from ET seems logical, but here it's clearly the profit motive driving everything. epp

[Wayne Bossert]

There are those who would argue that the market approach will also greatly favor those who can afford to pay the most - which of course is not agriculture. If this is true, a market approach could be argued as being a sophisticated and subtle social planning scheme deluxe - to transfer huge amounts of Ag water to M&I uses. But as is true in all things water, it's all about your perspective. Thanks for the report on NM water policy.