The Vision of Fritz Hahn

Recently, I wrote a piece about The Seeds of a Taos Cultural Renaissance and how local cultural institutions, UNM, the Harwood Museum of Art, the Taos Historical Society, among others, including Taos County, have recognized and seek to promote local culture and history as an enriching venture into the post 2008 recessionary period that is likely to continue for some time. Given the decline of the art scene and subsequent decline in tourism during the post-2008 recessionary period, Taos needs to change its approach to importing dollars from mainstream visitors. As we know the second home market and boom in real estate and home construction has come to a virtual halt. We must alert folks to other attractions like history, ecology, the outdoors, etc.

While most politicians in the Town and County seem focused on fighting with each other or while the Taos Municipal Schools ignore their moral obligations to students, whether challenged by disabilities or otherwise, and while the KCEC Coop and Holy Cross Hospital focus on their “contracts for cuates” programs—or extracting income from taxpayers and rate payers here in greater Taos County, the rest of us are out here in the economic hinterlands of the community trying to scrape by.

We all know Taos needs a new mayor, who prefers work gloves and actually getting things done to hot air and talking in circles like Mr. Peralta or singing about his legendary hat size and transforming public revenue into a private source of income for his broadcasting enterprise, like Mr. Cordova. We don’t need politicos like Mr. Silva, who excavate the vega and smother ditches or see political office as a link to real estate commissions like Mr. Walmart Abeyta or the myopic Mr. Gonzales, who can’t see through his own doors and windows to the damage being done by the Command Center follies and expansion of empire i.e. annexation.

Candidates for office in Taos rarely give voice to a vision that serves both the local people and tourist trade but town council candidate Fritz Hahn has done just that in his calls to rejuvenate the acequias in the Town of Taos itself. I believe mayoral candidate Dan Barrone, council candidate Judi Cantu, and the unannounced candidate, Jerome Lucero could all support Hahn’s vision.

Indeed, Fritz has found a study, paid for, shelved, and hidden away by the Town of Taos that proposes re-opening the water ways north of the Plaza, which could serve as both historic reminders of the past and the present Abeyta-Taos Pueblo Water Settlement while also serving as conduits—arteries, veins, and capillaries—that nourish micro-agricultural practices, resulting in produce garnered from in-town vegetable patches and served up at farmer’s markets, local grocery stores, and at farm fresh cafes, a current trend in the nation. Tourists and locals, who have forgotten, could walk down the street and see water in living acequias, winding its way through town in a version of Venice in the Desert. Just as there is an acequia in front of the post office, so there are acequias on Bent St. and the Plaza, which could be resurrected.

The Town has paved over, buried, or otherwise neglected its historic heritage but the acequias themselves (Spring Ditch, Sanchez Ditch, Moreno Ditch, Acequia Madre del Pueblo), like the constitutional rights to use them, never go away. Apparently the incumbent mayor and town council are hostile toward the acequia culture, given their impairment of the Spring Ditch and allowing building permits for Valverde Commons, which has also impaired ancient acequias in the vega on the west side.

Both the Spring Ditch and the Autumn Acres /Valverde Commons projects exemplify an embarrassing example of how greedy developers, greedy builders, and blatant hypocrites—i.e. alleged enviros and friends of the “river”—gather together and create a confluence of fluster clucks with the aid of corrupt politicos. But Father Hahn brings an opportunity for reconciliation and forgiveness: rejuvenate Town of Taos Acequias, wash away the sins of the improvident politicos and short sighted developers, who would despoil the vega. Reclaim the community and teach the kids and the tourists about the historic lore and principles of food security. See the water passing in front of your eyes, not just arriving from the faucet.

The system of acequias in Taos Valley may be as old as 400 years. Taos Pueblo’s source of sacred water, Blue Lake, has been there since “time immemorial.” Seeing the water in front of your eyes is a constant reminder of the way spiritual and irrigation practices inscribe each other. Sylvia Rodriquez documents these practices in her fine book: Acequia, Water Sharing, Sanctity, and Place. That book along with R.C. McCutcheon’s Taos Indians and the Battle for Blue Lake should be mandatory reading for planners at the Town and Town lawyers, like Brian James, who don’t understand complaints filed in district court by parciantes.

If President Nixon and President Obama, who have signed off on these historic agreements, can recognize the importance of maintaining historic water distribution systems, you’d think a few local politicians and developers could step up to the plate. Ironically, the current trend toward farmers markets and food security is a perfect match for taking another look at the acequia system. Given the hoop-la of the Abeyta—Taos Water Settlement, to which the Town of Taos is a signatory, it’s time.