Drill it til it's dry?

Augustin Plains Ranch LLC has filed a petition to drill 37 wells, all with 20-inch casing, using 54,000 acre-feet of ground water per year. This huge drain on our aquifer would represent a terrible waste of our most precious resource, water. What's worse is that the company plans to pump the water out of the ground only to drain it into the Rio Grande River, in order to fulfill downstream water obligations that the state must meet. In other words, the real purpose of the water drilling is to allow more sprawling developments in and around Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and other cities, while laying the long term environmental costs at the feet of the rural counties, like Catron and Socorro County. What does it matter if counties with few citizens run out of water in a few decades? Well, to those of us living here, it matters a heck of a lot!

How to file an objection

Those wishing to oppose this should contact the state engineer's office at the following address:

Office of the State Engineer
121 Tijeras NE, Suite 2000
Albuquerque, NM 87102

Letters may also be faxed to: 505-764-3892, provided the original is hand-delivered or postmarked within 24 hours after transmission of the fax.

Full announcement at the Chieftain

You can read the entire public announcement in the classifieds at the Chieftain, here.

For further reading

A concerned group of citizens maintains a web page to keep the rest of us up to date on the happenings surrounding this issue, including efforts to stop it. See this site for details.