State engineer speaks at committee meeting in Clovis

The New Mexico State Legislature’s Water and Natural Resources Committee hosted a meeting in Clovis this week at which the Ute Water Pipeline was one of the topics of discussion.

New Mexico State Engineer Mike Hamman was one of the speakers. The News interviewed Hamman after his presentation.

By way of historical background, Hamman said the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission built, owns and operates Ute Reservoir.

The reservoir, created in 1963, was built, in part, for the purpose of providing drinking water to the people of Eastern New Mexico, he said. Reserved for the people is 24,000-acre-feet of water in the reservoir. This is a permanent supply of drinking water.

The water belongs to both the member communities in the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority and non-members in the Eastern New Mexico area, Hamman said.

The member communities of the ENMWUA pay a sum of money for the water allocation and the ongoing operation and maintenance of the reservoir, he said.

As State Engineer, he said one of his jobs is to prepare the people in Eastern New Mexico for “any persistent drought and impacts due to climate change and increasing temperatures.”

He said part of his job is to provide communities with a knowledge of the extent of the water resources in the region, which will allow them to “optimize those resources in a sustainable (way).”

The Eastern New Mexico Pipeline, now under construction to bring water from the reservoir to communities in Eastern New Mexico, is an example of this.

“(With the pipeline) we will be able to take the water supply (from the reservoir) and prolong the life of the Ogallala Aquifer well into the future,” he said.

He said he works with the Governor, the Legislature and the federal government to make sure there is funding to complete the project, he said.

“The Secretary of the Interior said this $177 million (in the recent infrastructure bill to Eastern New Mexico) was a down payment to complete the project,” he said. “It will take another $400 million-plus to complete the pipeline.”