When my wife and I relocated to Las Cruces for nursing school and sunshine in 2007, we had a big surprise the next year: downpours from four hurricanes, two from the east, two from the west. Living on an escarpment, we saw flood-control ponds with water so deep that neighborhood kids swam in them. We told family and friends that we had lakefront property. Because the ponds attracted many ducks, waders, and insectivores, the birdwatching was excellent.
The year before, I had attended a district meeting at which newly elected Mayor Ken Miyagishima and Councilor Gil Jones addressed citizen interests in city development. Most citizens mentioned bicycle paths, shaded bus stops, enhanced city parks, and more—all worthy. I asked a question which took them by surprise: did the city have a water management plan. The answer was “no” although climate predictions for a hotter, drier Southwest were already widely accepted. In private conversations afterwards, I advised thinking about this impending future. They did not; the flood plain, though incompetently re-arranged, has nothing to do; and the birding is lousy.
Las Cruces does nothing much better than it does anything else. Inaction is often commendable where infrastructure is concerned. When it laid a concrete pad to prevent mosquito-breeding ponding in a storm run-off, it failed to anchor the pad. Rushing water from the next rainstorm lifted the pad, broke it, and lifted the broken section onto the unbroken section—a lesson in Las Cruces incompetence left unrepaired for all to see.
The bigger problem is climate change. The predicted drought is upon Las Cruces and the rest of the state. The smaller snow packs in Colorado are beyond anyone’s control; drilling permits to tap aquifers are not, but they are a drop in the bucket, so to speak, as far as a reliable water supply is concerned. Past water shortages have led to water wars. Presently, they are predictable if New Mexico governors and legislators do not prepare for the economy-busting effects of long-term droughts.
The three major combatants will be cities, with residential and commercial needs increased by growth; agriculture, and extractive industries. A struggle between Las Cruces real estate construction and Dona Ana County water-intensive crops like pecans and pistachios is easy to imagine. Here and elsewhere there will be legal, perhaps even illegal, skirmishes when shortages can no longer be abated by conservation measures like alternate-day lawn watering.
What is needed is state action, from public hearings to legislation. New Mexico needs principles and procedures to establish priorities; regulations necessarily mandatory in times of stress; and provisions for rigorous enforcement. The alternative is competition for water, rising water prices, unplanned failures in different economic sectors, social dislocations, adverse environmental effects, and more—none of it good.
Since the effects of the drought are likely to be unevenly distributed, smaller, more remote cities and towns are likely the earliest and greatest victims. Economic depression will close businesses, close schools, and collapse the housing market. The state should begin now to identify the most vulnerable cities and towns, and assess how they may be transitioned to an alternative economy or else decommissioned, with assured alternative employment, schools, and housing for relocated residents. Only government, not the private sector, can take an organized and orderly approach to these problems.
However, if New Mexico is faithful to its past and true to its culture, it will take no action but do nothing very well, and defer the problems, to the next generation, with greatly diminished hopes of solving them. Meanwhile, it can create a statewide industry of exporting sandbags to riparian or coastal cities fighting rising river or ocean levels. But it cannot provide more water to meet its needs.
Las Cruces has problems whether it does something or does nothing. It can develop a water resource plan, make it part of its city planning, and abide by and enforce it. But if it makes assured additional water supply a condition on building permits, it will anger the construction industry, one of the largest employers in town. Or the city can do nothing and anger both future and current residential and commercial property owners who will experience “brownouts” or “blackouts” in their water supplies—little or no tap, bath, or toilet water. So we can all learn the lyrics, “it ain’t gonna rain no more no more; it ain’t gonna rain no more. So how in the heck can I wash my neck if it ain’t gonna rain no more.”
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