U.S. Water News Online
SANTA FE -- A federal judge overseeing a 38-year-old water rights lawsuit says she expects lawyers in the case to work out a settlement agreement by the end of the month and present it for her signature by summer.
U.S. District Judge Martha Vazquez issued that timeline in a court order.
She inherited the case when the previous presiding judge, Edwin Mechem, died last year. Mechem had assigned the lawsuit to a federal magistrate to try to hammer out a settlement agreement behind closed doors.
The proposed settlement calls for building a regional water system in the Pojoaque Valley.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has prepared a draft study of the costs of building such a system but the study has not been released.
The case, known as the Aamodt lawsuit after the first name in alphabetical order among the plaintiffs, began in 1966 when the state engineer sued all water users in the Rio Pojoaque, Rio Tesuque and Rio Nambe watersheds to determine the extent of Indian and non-Indian water rights. The complex lawsuit involves 2,825 individual claimants, 51 acequias and Pojoaque, Tesuque, Nambe and San Ildefonso pueblos.
Previous court rulings have found the four pueblos have first water rights, which predate New Mexico statehood and are protected by federal law.
Mark Sheridan, lawyer for the Rio Pojoaque Acequia and Water Well Users Association, a group of non-Indians involved in the lawsuit, said the court's confidentiality order prohibits him from discussing the case. However, he said he believes the parties are optimistic they can reach a settlement.
Some details of the proposed settlement have become public, including the key plan for the federal and state governments to build a regional water system to supply the area.
Most non-Indians covered by the lawsuit currently rely on individual wells. In exchange for them giving up those wells, Indian pueblos would give up their right to a priority call against the non-Indians when water is in short supply.
A priority call asks that people whose water rights were obtained more recently be cut off so those with older water rights get their full share.
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