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Water Planning in the South West
By Martin Zehr (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)
Going with the Flow Instead of Against It
Now that this process is merging with the efforts of local municipalities in the implementation and monitoring of the plan, developers have moved in search of other, more hospitable venues. They left making a statement declaring that they see no water "crisis" facing the region. They have moved on to happier hunting grounds where they will have more influence through lobbying and contact with public officials. Unfortunately for them, they left little behind in the plan itself. Their inability to make significant inroads in the plan's development should be a flashing light to discouraged activists who are so accustomed to defeat by such interests within existing governmental entities. It also introduces new structures as emerging bioregional political entities based on stakeholder representation.
All things considered it was a very productive exercise and stands on its own as a process that effectively promoted green values and integrated them with bioregional planning. Bernalillo County has developed a Draft Water Conservation Plan that explicitly traces its proposals to the regional water plan and is the first governmental entity to demonstrate a linkage between the plan and the development of appropriate ordinances and regulations to implement it. A water budget is in the initial drafting stages of input by the Water Resources Advisory Committee (WRAC) that may present substantive differences with the plan's recommendations and proposals despite its effort to use the language of the plan. But, because of the Water Assembly's leading role in the planning process and its representation on the WRAC, this will not go through without considerable review and new input. Much of the opposition to the plan's incorporation into the water budget comes from staff of the City of Albuquerque, the Middle Region Council of Governments and the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority.
Green efforts need to be prioritized to gain the most in the shortest amount of time. We need to work in processes that will provide regional engagement on green issues. Greens could have worked for years to elect the entire state legislature and we would not have produced a more effective array of policy proposals that are integrated with local and state governments. What remains to be addressed is the existing over-appropriation of 70,000-110,000 acre feet/year of the water resource and the continued effort by public officials to disregard this deficit.
A citizen "Livabilty" coalition has been formed of individuals and groups supporting the implementation of the regional water plan, the Planned Growth Strategy (a holistic urban smart growth plan for Albuquerque) and the Metropolitan Transportation Plan. It came together as an expression of the frustration of many advocates in the failure to have the plans implemented after they were designed through a public process. It is possible that this coalition may develop a political strategy for addressing the implementation of these plans that have already been approved by the local governmental entities. This demonstrated frustration raises the political issue and brings it to the fore with a different sense of urgency. It also subtly establishes the priority of a promoting a Green political agenda over voting for a "winnable" duopolist candidate, who will not seek to implement the plans.
This is not a panacea. It is not intended to represent some grand strategy that Greens should implement in place of electoral work. It is simply a process that has produced results that are consistent with green values. A process and product that can readily be supported by progressives and even Republican farmers. Our ability to work with a variety of stakeholders is dependent on listening to them and defining our own priorities within the process. We were all able to stand firm against efforts by the Regional Council of Governments to delete Goal K of the Water Assembly: "Balance growth with renewable supply". We were able to maintain the goals described above regarding Growth Management in spite of the Water Resources Board of MRCOG opposing those listed after the first bullet. The Draft Water Conservation Plan of the Bernalillo County Commission specifically lists this goal and the growth management recommendations in its text. This is a major victory in itself.
It is necessarily a long process that not everyone will be able to sustain, but there are payoffs at the end. The length of the process may improve the local party's orientation in regards to the technical, as well as the political aspects of water planning. The planning process will not automatically provide solutions to political issues. Candidates, such as the Greens, should reach out in such work and begin to develop a working coalition with voter blocs that have common interests and agendas. They should work with the variety of activists to develop strategies for implementation of recommendations in the face of opposition by public officials and administrators. We need to discuss the planning process with their supporters and get input.
It is important that such bioregional water planning be authorized by the state legislature to empower and fund it upon completion. It is worthwhile to begin assimilating the open and inclusive nature of such a planning process into policy proposals for structural reform of governmental entities as proposed in works on Adaptive Governance. Organizers can initiate and support proposals for structural reform in local governance and planning that begin to incorporate the role of stakeholders in the decision-making processes. This can take place in charter changes and at the state level in getting such statutes sponsored that would move in that direction.
Bioregional planning is a learning experience that helps people identify actively engaged people of the region, as well as learning local movers and shakers that often work behind the scenes for the developers, home construction and related interests. It helps provide a self-education in hydrology and forces people to become more informed on the resource. It is also democracy at work at the most fundamental level and in the most fundamental area of policy determination impacting on water management. The incorporation of Town Hall meetings, Community Conversations, and open and inclusive input in such processes go beyond that currently modeled in municipal and other local governmental entities. The process can be effectively developed not only for water resource planning but for other areas of policy making, such as urban growth, fish and wildlife management, and forest and range land restoration.
The challenge ahead in implementation of the regional water plan for the Middle Rio Grande once again demonstrates the urgency of an ecologically based agenda. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are prepared to defy the interests of the high-tech industries, defense labs and the developers and home construction industry. There are no perfect models of resource planning that will address the myriad of factors undermining the establishment of sustainable planning systems. But, we can begin to comprehend the various defined local interests, actors and entities and their role in the growth-driven models of the present and can begin to construct new models for the future. We can begin to learn from this process and we can begin to define a new agenda while the window of opportunity is open. It's like floating downstream in a mountain stream.
Mato Ska, Aka Martin Zehr, m_zehr@hotmail.com
(Brown, John R. "Whiskey's fer Drinkin'; Water's fer Fightin'! Is It? Resolving a Collective Action Dilemma in New Mexico". NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL,; Winter 2003,Vol 43, No. 1. p.221. UNM SCHOOL OF LAW, Albuquerque, NM.)
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Martin Zehr is an American political writer in the San Francisco area. He spent 8 years working as a volunteer water planner for the Middle Rio Grande region. http://www.waterassembly.org
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