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Editorial: Compromise, don't fight over ancient resource

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It's almost as ancient in New Mexico as the wind, the rugged landscape, the blowing sand and the blue skies: fighting over water.

Whose is it? Who gets to use it? Who has priority over whom in dipping into the finite pool of water here?

The latest flap pits the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority and Rio Rancho against New Mexico Water Utilities, a private company that supplies water to Paradise Hills and a narrow tract of land directly to the west out to the Rio Puerco Valley, including parcels annexed to Rio Rancho.

Both entities draw from the same ground water. Both sides are crying foul. Each has its points.

They should come to the negotiating table - with a mediator, if needed - and work out a compromise that conserves the precious, dwindling resource and that benefits water consumers, taxpayers and future users.

They don't need to get the Legislature involved, or the governor or the courts. But if they can't work out their differences for the common public good, then one or more of these entities will settle the question. And the chances are much more likely it will be an unfair and costly resolution.

The public water agencies want to take over the private water utility on the grounds that it is making a profit on a public resource and that Albuquerque and/or Rio Rancho taxpayers and water users are subsidizing the company - in part through waste-water sewer discharges from within the company's boundaries into the Albuquerque sewage system.

The private company counters that it is a legal enterprise providing a needed service to the area, that it has offered to work out its financial differences with the public utility and that it actually does a much better, more cost-effective job of delivering water to its customers than Albuquerque and Bernalillo County do to their customers.

A lot of rhetoric has fueled the dispute, but there are a few certainties and premises upon which the parties should base their negotiations.

First, at the beginning of the day, water is a vital public resource. And at the end of the day it needs to be under the public's jurisdiction and control. Even the city-country authority would benefit from responsibility and accountability reforms, but a private company is way outside those very necessary boundaries.

Admittedly, New Mexico Utilities has filled a void over the years, and its customers' praise is the best testimonial to its success. But as it and the metropolitan area that completely surrounds it grow, water issues need to be addressed and resolved in a universal fashion for the overall public good.

The company's officers and the water entities representing local governments should sit down and work out a financial settlement and an orderly transfer of New Mexico Utilities' pumping and water-delivery assets to the appropriate public utilities for a fair price.

The public utilities in turn have a sacred responsibility and public trust to manage limited and dwindling water resources for the best long-term public purposes.

While they have made significant conservation strides in recent years, they remain woefully behind the Albuquerque metropolitan area growth curve in policies that reflect the best long-term public interests for preserving, conserving and protecting the most essential and ancient public resource - our water.