Rural New Mexicans meet drought with culture of water sharing
| Placitas, N.M.
Carolyn Kennedy can鈥檛 hurdle the ditch like she used to. So, on a warm August afternoon, she鈥檚 limping home with a twisted ankle.
Muddy and narrow, the ditch 鈥� known as an acequia 鈥� snakes up the northern slope of the Sandia Mountains in rugged 鈥榮鈥� bends. In the three centuries the village of Placitas has occupied these dusty orange hills, the acequia has barely changed. It鈥檚 one of the things Ms. Kennedy loves most about it.
But not everything is the same, she acknowledges as she settles into a green couch in the cottage she鈥檚 called home for about five decades.
Why We Wrote This
Drought and climate change pose new challenges to New Mexico鈥檚 water supply. But a tradition of shared access 鈥� based around irrigation ditches called acequias 鈥� continues to thrive.
鈥淭here used to be water in the ditch all the time,鈥� she says. And not just that, but peach trees, apple orchards, and other produce locals would sell to make a little extra money.
As the rest of the world adopted new water storage and irrigation technologies, these hand-dug and gravity-fed trenches have remained an economic and cultural lifeline for rural New Mexico. In fact they are part of a long line of communities and civilizations to rely on acequias 鈥� and, broadly, acequia culture 鈥� to survive in some of the planet鈥檚 most inhospitable climates.
Acequia managers in New Mexico fought for years in courtrooms and legislative offices to carve a place for themselves as water rights became increasingly privatized. Today, as megadrought and economic development ramp up pressure on the roughly 640 acequias in the state, they see their ancient, community-driven approach to water management as more threatened 鈥� but more valuable 鈥� than ever.
鈥淎cequias have learned long ago to be able to share the water 鈥� what there is,鈥� says Ms. Kennedy. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what we do here. We share what little there is as best we can.鈥�
Mainstream appeal in an era of change
Across the living room in their cottage, her husband, Lynn Montgomery 鈥� a self-proclaimed 鈥渄esert rat鈥� and 鈥渁ctivist hippie鈥� 鈥� is sitting on a silver exercise ball. He鈥檚 been through some bad droughts, including two in the past three years. He鈥檚 been watching聽as聽snowmelt, the primary water source for his acequias,聽continues a long-term聽decline.
Still, he believes that this gritty subculture not only has to endure the state鈥檚 increasingly dry future, but has to re-enter the mainstream.
鈥淚鈥檓 into turning everybody into an acequia person in the state,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what we have to do.鈥�
The idea may not be outlandish, given the support this culture has found in the past.
Acequias 鈥� pronounced聽ah-SEH-kee-ahs 鈥撀� were developed over thousands of years in the Middle East and North Africa. (The word 鈥渁cequia鈥� is derived from the Arabic term al-s膩qiya,聽鈥渙ne that gives water.鈥�) They were so effective at irrigating crop land in Spain that when King Jaime I recaptured the city of Valencia from the Moors in 1238, he kept in place the network of gravity-fed irrigation ditches the Muslims had installed.
Almost 400 years later, the first Spanish settlers arrived in New Mexico. Eyeing up the dry, arid hills, and taking some inspiration from the local Indigenous population, the colonists constructed acequias as they sought to settle and populate the colony. By 1848, as the region neared becoming an official U.S. territory, Brig. Gen. Stephen Kearny 鈥� like the Spanish king centuries earlier 鈥撀犅爐hat the existing acequia systems not be disturbed.
A culture shaped by topography
Acequias existed throughout the Spanish empire 鈥� including modern cities like Los Angeles, Tucson, and San Antonio 鈥� but they persisted in New Mexico because, with the rugged geography, large-scale development couldn鈥檛 take hold.
鈥淚t was not economically feasible for large scale-agriculture,鈥� says Jos茅 Rivera, a professor at the University of New Mexico and author of 鈥淎cequia Culture: Water, Land, and Community in the Southwest.鈥�
鈥淭hat鈥檚 how they survived.鈥�
Acequias in New Mexico are now used only for irrigation, but the term 鈥渁cequia鈥� refers to much more than the physical 鈥� and often modest 鈥� infrastructure itself. It鈥檚 also a name for the community that uses the canal, and the worldview that it requires of them.
鈥淎n acequia is a community of people,鈥� says Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association. 鈥淵ou have your right to the water, but you also have your responsibilities to the community.鈥�
鈥淵ou learn from an acequia how to work together, to care for the water, to deal with ... moving water across the landscape together,鈥� she adds.
This includes centuries-old traditions like the聽mayordomo, the person elected every few years to manage how much water gets shared through the acequia and when, and the聽limpiando, when the community descends on the ditch for an annual 鈥渟pring cleaning.鈥�
Acequias, as communities, have been effective political and legal operators over the years 鈥� and in the U.S. Southwest, where water rights are everything, that has been crucial to their survival. It has kept water rights from being sold out from under them, and from new development drinking communities dry.
鈥淎cequias are still managed as they were centuries ago,鈥� Ms. Garcia says. 鈥淲hat we see [now] is acequias are working hard to continue to exist and to be viable and to contribute to a thriving community.鈥�
An age-old system that is also up for renewal
Indeed, alongside tradition there has been innovation.
In Placitas, this has taken the form of electronic meters 鈥� not eyeballs 鈥� tracking water levels in tanks the acequia feeds for domestic water use. In Albuquerque, and on a larger scale, this has taken the form of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD).
While rampant urbanization 鈥� and the privatization of water rights 鈥� diminished the presence of acequias in cities across the West, they have remained fairly robust in Albuquerque thanks to the MRGCD. Created in 1923 to help restore the city鈥檚 watershed following decades of development and deforestation upstream, it manages 1,200 miles of waterways 鈥� including many acequias, which have self-governance but also irrigate from water legally owned by the MRGCD.
鈥淲e depend on them and they depend on us,鈥� says Enrique Lamadrid, a comisionado (a kind of deputy mayordomo) of the Alamos de Gallegos acequia in north Albuquerque. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a really great kind of symbiotic relationship.鈥�
Indeed, in a desert city of golf courses and sprawling subdivisions, where water flows from faucets on command, acequias see themselves as a necessary champion of sustainability. For the average person walking through downtown Albuquerque, it may be hard to see that snowpack in the state has been below average now, or that, according to one study, the state is its worst drought since the late 1500s.
But it鈥檚 not hard for Mr. Lamadrid. In a good year, his acequia can water homes from spring through mid-October. This year, their water arrived in late May and disappeared in late July.
鈥淚t鈥檚 more than the historic [drought] cycles,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e are talking about something long term. We鈥檙e bracing for it, we鈥檙e planning for it.鈥�
鈥淭he resilience is here, the experience is here. The experience goes clear back at least 1,000 years,鈥� he adds, to Indigenous peoples who lived in the Rio Grande floodplain.
鈥淭he technology is there,鈥� he continues. But 鈥渄o people have the will to deal with the drought?鈥�
Cutting back as water grows scarce
Now elderly and mustachioed, Bert De Lara has spent his whole life in Placitas 鈥� a village his family helped found. One of his earliest memories was watching his family鈥檚 big apple orchard succumb to a severe drought in the 1950s. Seven decades later, another drought hit in 2018, and residents were only able to use drinking water in the mornings and evenings.
鈥淚t was inconvenient, but people understood. And they were pretty good about it,鈥� he says. 鈥淪o we got through it.鈥�
In Placitas this summer, the water meters have helped maintain a small but steady flow of water through the acequias 鈥� though their mayordomo has cut irrigating back from once a week, to once every two weeks, to now once every three weeks.
鈥淭his summer we鈥檝e been holding our own,鈥� says Mr. De Lara. But 鈥渢here鈥檚 lots of houses around, and you can only support so many.鈥�
Indeed, as the snowpack has dwindled, the number of new adobe houses in the burnt orange foothills of the Sandia Mountains has grown. Unlike most acequias in the state, the Placitas acequia is used for both irrigation and domestic use, but these newer residents aren鈥檛 legally allowed to draw water from it, because of a two-decade moratorium. Yet with a lack of access to the acequia comes a lack of access to the culture of stewardship and responsibility to water it engenders.
New development and industry 鈥� the legalization of recreational marijuana this year has put an added strain on water 鈥� as well as an aging generation of acequia managers are all concerns for people like Ms. Garcia.
But particularly given their centuries-long track record of surviving on minimal resources, she thinks acequias are well placed to help New Mexico navigate a drier, thirstier future. Out of the roughly 640 acequias in the state, she notes, about 200 of them are improving their infrastructure.
鈥淎cequias are taking on some of these challenges in really tangible ways,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not in a state of decline at all. What I鈥檝e observed in the last [few decades] is a resurgence in interest.鈥�
This resurgence ranges from infrastructure improvements, to court battles people have led to protect ground and surface water rights for acequias, to a program the NMAA has run since 2005 teaching younger generations about acequia management and culture.
And while there will be many hard summers ahead, as long as that knowledge is passed down, Mr. Montgomery is confident acequias will continue to endure.
鈥淲e have generations and generations of experience, suffering loss and being able to overcome it,鈥� says Mr. Montgomery.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 how we have survived through the years,鈥� he adds. 鈥淭he resilience of acequia communities is that they鈥檙e communities.鈥�
Editor's note: This article has been updated with the pronunciation of acequias and clarifications about the聽Placitas acequia.
