El Salto Citizen Questions Abeyta Movidas

By: Stella Martinez Gallegos

Dear Editor:

I am writing this letter regarding the Abeyta Water Rights Settlement.
I have lived in El Salto all my life. I have beautiful memories being a child in the sixties. I remember the big open fields and the acequia running through our property behind my parents house. We had lambs, pigs, and chickens. My father irrigated the land and his big garden. All the neighbors knew one another and there were no trespassing signs. It was beautiful.

Things have changed so much, and will continue to change, and change drastically. I am learning about the Abeyta Water Rights Settlement and about Regionalism, two separate issues but I believe they are connected.

According to the Abeyta Settlement, eighteen wells will be dug in Taos County. Mitigation wells are supposed to fix what is damaged. If one Google’s mitigation, radon is mentioned.

Two aquifer storage wells will be dug in the Arroyo Seco area. One of these wells might be next to my family’s property on property belonging to Palemon Martinez. The Aquifer storage well is also a retrieval well. This aquifer well here in El Salto will hold twenty five percent of our water. Mr. Martinez will have access to the stored water before the parciantes.

My understanding is that these aquifer wells will feed streams that will flow into buffalo pasture in the Pueblo land. No one knows what the consequences of an an aquifer well are until they start digging. Experts have testified about dangers of hitting rock and releasing radon. It sounds like a big science project.

The streams will be in danger of drying up. Acequia Mayordomos and eleven Mutual Domestic Water Consumer Associations (MDWCA) have signed off on the Abeyta, waiving their water rights. Although El Salto is one of them, a lot of people have no idea that “a done deal” was done behind our backs.

The people need to be heard: it’s our constitutional right. The Abeyta document is overwhelmingly complicated, marked by intermittent amendments and attachments, continuously added since 2006. The deadline for implementation is 2017. Millions of dollars are aimed at implementing this project.

The project seems to benefit big box developers and the water brokers that are already selling water down the Rio Grande. I hear Questa is being forced to “ration water.” In the past neighbors helped one another without getting paid. We shared in the shortages and shared in the abundance.

Are we going to help our neighbors in Questa or just take away their water thanks to the County Commissioners, who have blessed Palemon Martinez and John Painter?

Thanks,

Stella