Gila diversion environmental study released for comment
A key document in the yearslong process undertaken by the group planning a controversial diversion of water from the Gila River and its tributaries was officially released today, marking a milestone for the project.
The Gila diversion, as it’s now envisioned, could annually divert anywhere from 349 to 1,845 acre-feet of surface and ground water from the Gila and San Francisco rivers for agricultural use under the terms of the 2004 federal Arizona Water Settlements Act.
The regular meeting of the New Mexico Entity of the Central Arizona Project held Wednesday, which, due to COVID-19 restrictions, was held online using the GoToMeeting video conferencing app, included a report from Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez about how to access the document, which will not be available in the usual manner because of closures, which means places like local libraries and community centers can’t host hard copies for the public to access.
“I want to make sure people can find what they need,” Gutierrez said Wednesday. “You can find the draft EIS on the website, nmuniteis.com. Also, there is a virtual public meeting place — this is a good tool. This is for the required public comment period.”
The Entity is made up of 14 ditch associations, soil and water conservation districts and municipalities, as well as the four New Mexico counties that were included in the 2004 settlement. Components of the proposed series of diversions could be built in Grant, Hidalgo and Catron counties, but Luna County and the city of Deming, which serves as the second fiscal agent for the Entity, would no longer see a direct benefit from any of the proposed actions outlined in the draft EIS. They remain a party to the settlement, however, and are still on the group’s board.
The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission is the 15th, non-voting, member of the Entity and the group’s primary fiscal agent, controlling the purse strings to the N.M. Unit Fund, which later this year will top off at around $72 million after the final settlement payment is transmitted. Roughly $15 million has been spent exploring the development of a diversion project over the past 15 years, millions of which went into the just-released environmental impact statement, although some of those expenditures also predate the formation of the Entity itself.
The much-delayed publication of the draft environmental impact statement, which describes the various components of the Gila diversion and gives some indication of the viability of the project, is the culmination of a yearslong process mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. As predicted by Gutierrez, the EIS uses two cost analysis scenarios: One scenario would include no public funding for the project, while the other includes “up to $60 million in public funding available for construction-related costs from the N.M. Unit Fund.”
Because of significant delays during the NEPA process, the Entity blew a deadline at the end of last year, costing them approximately $66 million in additional AWSA money that was solely to be used for constructing the diversion project.
The ISC will have to decide whether to fund any construction — even the relatively small “Virden-only” Alternative D now advocated by the Entity — out of the existing N.M. Unit Fund, which can also be spent on other, much-needed water development projects in the four-county area, such as the Grant County Regional Water Supply Project, for example. And even with public funding, the irrigation water supplied by the Entity would be expensive.
“Based on financial analysis, financial cost per acre-foot to be paid by users, without public funding, ranges from $730 in Alternative D to $3,326 for Alternative E,” the draft EIS executive summary reports. “The financial cost per acre-foot with public funding ranges from $248 for Alternative B to $2,395 for Alternative E.”
The publication of the draft EIS also signals the start of a 45-day comment period, after which time a final environmental impact statement will be formulated.
The NEPA process to evaluate the environmental, economic, sociocultural and other impacts of diverting water from what many, including U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall and multiple environmental protection groups, consider to be “New Mexico’s last free-flowing river,” was led by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the ISC, which had originally intended to hold a series of meetings where the public could view documents and presentations, ask questions and submit comments in person.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, such public meetings are prohibited by order of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham until at least May 15, and federal COVID-19 guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention make any in-person gatherings unlikely for the foreseeable future.
In an April 2 letter to ISC Chairman Mark Sanchez and Brenda Burman, commissioner for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Center for Biological Diversity and a dozen other environmental groups, as well as former Interstate Stream Commissioner Norm Gaume, point out the fact that just 52 percent of households in Catron County and 57 percent of households in Luna County have broadband internet subscriptions, while less than 67.1 percent of households in Grant and Hidalgo counties have access to the technology they will need in order to read and comment on the diversion project EIS online.
The letter expresses concern about the proposal “to hold no actual meetings regarding the draft EIS,” a situation the signatories called “fundamentally unfair, and in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.”
“Instead, your agencies are proposing two webinars in place of the originally proposed eight public meetings in New Mexico and Arizona,” the letter continued. “Such an approach would unfairly exclude many New Mexicans who are concerned about this controversial proposal. We also object to the too-short 45-day comment period. Under your 2016 Memorandum of Understanding, a consensus is required between [Reclamation and the ISC] for all elements of the NEPA process — including the schedule and public participation. By this letter, the undersigned organizations request that either or both of you postpone the public meetings for the DEIS comment period until actual in-person public meetings can be held. In addition, a comment period of at least 90 days would be appropriate, given the circumstances.”
“I know that not everybody in your area has easy access to websites,” said Dominique Work, legal bureau chief for the ISC, during Wednesday’s meeting. “If anybody needs paper copies of the EIS, they can contact Ali Effati at the Interstate Stream Commission or Sean Heath from the Bureau of Reclamation by telephone. If you give them your address, we will make sure that you receive a paper copy of the EIS.”
Heath may be reached at 623-773-6250, and Effati by calling 505-827-5801.
Also on Wednesday, Entity members voted to approve sending a letter to Udall and Heinrich, asking them to amend the draft version of the “M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic River Act,” a bill which the senators are planning to introduce this year, in order to give “safe harbor” to any AWSA diversion projects planned by the Entity or otherwise funded through the N.M. Unit Fund. The letter requests the language be applied to five segments proposed for designation: the Gila Middle Box and the Gila Lower Box segments of the Gila River; and the Upper Frisco Box, Devil’s Creek and lower San Francisco Canyon segments of the San Francisco River.
“Designation of this segment as a component of the Wild and Scenic Rivers System shall not be utilized by any federal agency as a reason or basis to prohibit the development or operation of components of the N.M. Unit of the Central Arizona Project or other water utilization alternatives to meet the water supply demands in the Southwest Water Planning Region … provided that the diversion works shall not be located within the designated segment,” reads the language the Entity asked the senators to explicitly include in the bill, which is named after perhaps the most well-known citizen-opponent to every proposed Gila diversion going back half a century (before his death in March 2019), including the plans of the N.M. CAP Entity.
The Entity proposes the senators also amend the bill to read: “Congress finds that the development of components of the New Mexico Unit of the Central Arizona Project, or other water utilization alternatives to meet the water supply demands in the Southwest Water Planning Region of New Mexico, located above or below the designated segment, will neither invade nor unreasonably diminish the river values of [these] segments.”
