Augustin Plains Ranch (public-private partnership)

private ownership of the public water supply is very bad ... where's the news media coverage of all this? they've not said a word about this proposed project being a public-private partnership.

silence!
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"Augustin Plains Ranch has put forward a proposal for a water project to withdraw 54,000 acre feet per year from under the Augustin Plains, transport it to Socorro by pipeline, then north to the Albuquerque area."

Mountain Mail Thursday November 29, 2012 Vol. 32, No. 11. (pg 16)
Town Hall Meeting, Magdalena Senior Center (tuesday, 11dec12, 6pm-8pm)
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New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Bruce Frederick represents those opposed to the project.

“... we will continue to work to protect New Mexico’s most precious resource from those who
wish to monopolize it.” (Frederick)

"The state engineer denied Augustin Plains Ranch’s application for several reasons,
including that the application omitted basic critical details required by law — how, when,
where and in what quantities the corporation intended to use water."

http://www.dchieftain.com/2012/11/21/court-denies-augustin-plains-ranch-appeal-2
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below are the answers to the state engineer's questions (how, when, where and in what quantities the corporation intended to use water)

"Augustin Plains Ranch has put forward a proposal for a water project to withdraw 54,000 acre feet (quantity) per year (when) from under the Augustin Plains (origination; where), transport it to Socorro by pipeline (how), then north to the Albuquerque area (destination; where)."

so those are not the reasons for the denied application ...

the real reason for the denied application is that this project is structured as a public-private partnership and the laws necessary to make the project legal and viable are still being written ... water is publicly owned ... and to grant the right to 54,000 acre feet of water per year to one ranch owner so that he can then pump it to the albuquerque area and sell it at a profit requires some fancy language ... (every other rancher is entitled to 3 acre feet per year) ... (one acre foot ~ 326,000 gallons).

if you can't open this link:
http://www.nmlegis.gov/LCS/handouts/Augustin-Plains-Ranch-Water-FINAL-3-25-11.pdf

try this one:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:_Ls_sDdEI-YJ:www.nmlegis.gov/LCS/handouts/Augustin-Plains-Ranch-Water-FINAL-3-25-11.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi9uGvrU6iKcinVcB3ianuYR_n1ijsTukV7WRXIyskOin1ZSynedH1T75K2YoWIoSwYaaYK41OkSW2aqZAtu3Ry1LBL5Ir3Ol6skvELW7SfZyYoEmhnNMk4gHXo7eek6s2bVWFF&sig=AHIEtbT1mhJ9EpbShgza3cpCbpZL4AXwSw

imagine owning a neighboring ranch on the augustin plains ... your well at 300 ft ... there's at 3000 ft ... all 37 of them ... extracting 2000 gallons of water per minute from each well ... filling a 54 inch pipeline running to socorro ... imagine that ... how long before the water table drops and your well goes dry?
they claim never ... can you believe that?

Public-Private Partnerships – when private industry provides public services for profit. The original taxes for the services remain in place, but a duplicative “service for FEE” structure is added. It is FASCISM, and it should NOT be considered as a solution to the State’s budget woes. It promotes monopolies and destroys small business. If the stakeholder is not a shareholder, he has no voice.
https://sites.google.com/site/erikhawkes/Home/ppp
https://sites.google.com/site/erikhawkes/Home/how-ppps-really-work

the city of albuquerque (pop. 552k) consumes 100,000 acre feet of water annually ... this project proposes to extract  54,000 acre feet of water annually (for 300 years) ... and to sell it to you at a profit ...

they tried this in argentina ... once the ppp began charging people for collecting water in cisterns on their rooftops, that's when the trouble really started.

[a friend] adds ... See the san luis valley colorado water war over the last 25 years as an example of people over privitization. Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over.