New Mexico Mercury

Should Albuquerque be allowed to grow in size and population without tying its growth directly to its projected water supply over the next 50 to 100 years?

Should any big city in New Mexico permit sprawl development on the basis of “dedications,” which means, in the world of water, mere promises to find water after the developments have been built and populated?

Will Albuquerque be able to use water scarcity in a creative way, like a poet might use the constraints of a sonnet’s structure? Will it use climate change as a way reshape itself  around principles of water conservation and reclamation?  Will it begin to creative incentives for infill development, start constructing citywide gray water infrastructure, and experiment with recycling black water, or sewage water, for drinking?

Or will the city and its leaders dismiss the projections of a chronic drought and fight to continue to grow in size, at whatever cost to existing residents, the existing urban core, and future water users?
With the city’s mayoral elections set for October 8, it’s time to start looking for policy standards against which to assess a candidate’s seriousness.

Using water as a determining factor in city growth policy, and being able to explain its implications, would be a major indication if candidates are realistically up to speed on current conditions, or if they’re lost in the past, or merely running on a political party’s ideological tread mill.

When I first started writing about city politics in l971, growth and water were the major issues.  And they still are, with some major differences. In the old days, no one had the slightest notion about human-induced climate change. Running short of water was just a common sense possibility in a fast growing desert city, a matter of “what if?”.  But the dryness of the 21st century is no longer theoretical.

And a city that doesn’t tie residential growth, especially sprawl growth, to the possession of real water, could eventually be accused of colluding in a real estate scam to lure unsuspecting new residents it does not have the water to support.

Some might argue that tying development to water supply is preventing property owners from using their land and constitutes a “takings” by government, for which they would be due “just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Some might say that “dedications,” or promising water rights and building first before acquiring them, is a subtle way to get around Fifth Amendment issues, allowing property owners to make use of their land while still constraining them to acquire water rights themselves at a future time. 

Basically, tying housing development to water means a developer would have to possess actual water or have water rights in hand, both in sufficient quantity to support new residents for a stipulated number of years, perhaps a 100.

The city could work any number of other options. For infill developments as well as edge developments, it could require grey water and black water recycling and infrastructure, along with cisterns, and built-in latest-tech landscape watering devices. 

This notion of tying development to water is not a new one. People have been talking about it in New Mexico for decades. And five years ago, the State of Colorado passed a law requiring local governments to reject new developments if they do not have enough proven water to sustain all their new residents after the project is completed.

Requiring developers to guarantee water, while never absolutely trustworthy in an arid state suffering from protracted drought, might be the only way land owners could sell new housing anyway. Who would wrap up their life savings in a house on a lick and a promise of water? No one in their right minds.

To assess a candidate’s seriousness, one might ask these water questions another way:

Will a person from a political party that embraces libertarianism – that is doing away with everything but the barest vestiges of  government – ever be able to provide the leadership and vision needed to stimulate and support grassroots water planning, and then do something practical with it?

How is it possible for New Mexico to have a viable economic future without state and urban governments playing powerful leadership roles in solving pressing water issues based on data acquired and agreements achieved at the local level? Without legislative and executive leadership, local efforts go nowhere.