U.S. Water News Online
CARLSBAD, N.M.-- U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said supplemental water is the only sure way to provide enough water for the federally protected bluntnose shiner minnow while meeting the needs of Pecos River users.
David Batts of Denver-based Environmental Management Planning Solutions is contracting with the Bureau of Reclamation to prepare a required environmental assessment and said the project is in its early stages.
The assessment will analyze effects of proposed water exchanges. The federal agency must meet contracted water needs of the Carlsbad Irrigation District without hindering the state's obligations to provide water to Texas under the Pecos River Compact.
Batts said one proposal involves a transfer of Bureau of Reclamation-owned water rights or water rights acquired by the agency through lease agreements to bureau-owned wells at Brantley Reservoir, about 12 miles north of Carlsbad.
The transferred water would be pumped into Brantley Reservoir for irrigation use by the Carlsbad Irrigation District in exchange for CID water to be released from Sumner Reservoir upstream in DeBaca County.
However, irrigation district chairman Bill Ahrens expressed concern that Bureau of Reclamation officials are prematurely assuming the district will agree to release 2,500 acre-feet per year from Sumner Reservoir.
"It seems to me there are a lot of assumptions. What you are proposing can't be taken as fact," Ahrens said.
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