LET'S LOOK AT THE MATH

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Let's do a little arithmetic here.

Our Italian folks want to pump 54,000

acre feet of water per year out of the aquifer.

How much is an acre foot?

It's enough water to cover an acre of land,
4, 840 square yards, or 43, 560 square feet,

12" deep in water -

 325,853+ gallons.
Or....54,000 acre feet of water would cover
 540 acres in a hundred feet of water,
 imagine a real big deep water port.
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So how much agua is 54,000 acre feet?

In gallons that's

17,596,062,000

 plus change.

Per year.
That's over 2 million gallons an hour -
33,478 gallons per minute,
557.9674 gallons per second,
24/7 - no holidays off!
And they claim they can pump it for 300 years,
(or until it runs out), whichever comes first.
The sheer nerve of these foreigners is
 almost more astounding than the numbers.

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Could you float an aircraft carrier in

that much water?

Yes, you could float an aircraft carrier.

Along with the Queen Mary, a good chunk

of the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet, Noah's Ark,

Nessie the Loch Ness Monster, 

and even a half-dozen Mobster-owned yachts

  thrown in for good measure -

(with jet skis too!).
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Question: How much money
 is this water worth, over time?
Answer:  You'd need a vault the size
of a big hay barn to hold all the cash.
What are you paying for water these days?
How many gallons, for how much?
At a penny a gallon the annual
gross receipts for these "investors"
 would be over $175 million bucks a year.
Some people will say that figure's too high.
OK - cut that in half - a half penny a gallon.
I pay about that in Magdalena -
 just down the road from Rancho de Agua.
That would be $87.5 million - to start with.
Or mabe a lot more, a LOT more.
The Italianos aren't showing a business plan.
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How much cash would developers and
politicos be willing to fork over so that
the Albuquerque metro area, that
highly misguided experiment in
 urban fear and loathing,
 and so that Santa Fe, today a southwest
 pile of crap that defines the words:
 vanity, pretension, arrogance, and illusion,
could grow like the cancers they are?
Who knows?  Quien sabe? 
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 What kind of money would
Bruno and the boys have to float around the
 bums in Santa Fe, the Bureau of Reclamation,
a few so-called hydrology "experts,"
some cooperative folks in the state press, 
 the Corps of Engineers, a few congressmen....
you know.  To get things done, you know.
How much? 
 Only what's necessary,
as Tony Soprano would say.
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Hells bells, and everyone in New Mexico
who hasn't been either asleep, drugged, drunk,
or hidden away in the attic or basement for 
most of their life, knows the truth of this:
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IN THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
BUYING EVERYONE NECESSARY
FOR THE PROJECT WOULDN'T COST
VERY DAMN MUCH.
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What, a million or two?  Less?
They've always been cheap here.
I'd bet I can find an attorney/bagman
 to work things out for all parties,
to everyone's satisfaction (as they put it),
 faster than you can say:
"What denomination of bills would you like?
Or would you prefer a Swiss bank account?"
How much did Bill "pay-to-play" Richardson pocket
 to help Rancho de Agua get as far as it has?
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Water prices, nationally, vary from region
to region, but in the desert Southwest,
 very soon, if not already, water might
 be called a "bargain" at prices much
 higher than this.  The cost for water across
this whole area is only going up - not down.
This is potable water, drinkable water,
not some sludge that needs a mammoth
filtering plant to remove all the scum.
Only 1% of the planet's water is drinkable.
And remember, these guys are saying the
aquifer could be drained at this rate for
THREE-HUNDRED YEARS!
  So....generations and generations still to come
of the Modena clan and these "investors"
 can buy their mansions, Ferraris, yachts,
 elite European and American university 
degrees for all their kids, gold and diamonds,
 and truckloads of cannoli, all on this one deal!   
It may take a while to line up the buyers -
but I'm sure these guys can certainly
make you an offer you can't refuse,
 as they say....
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The potential profits here are unbelievable!
It's a Godfather's dream....
the money will be coming in like a
pipeline gushing a steady stream of cash.
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And I'd bet the San Augustin Plains Ranch
will be accomodating to the local folks,
their good neighbors all these years,
 whose wells will have probably dried up
at some point early in this fiasco,
and give all these people with dry holes
a nice CREDIT account, so they can actually
BUY water from these characters!
(Make sure you pay on time, or there
could be certain repercussions for your
unfortunate tardiness....)
Certainly there must be plans for all of this,
and a lot more.... a lot, lot more....
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There is speculation going on among

some journalists that this is the largest

amount of water, EVER, proposed for use

in the West that comes from a private source.
The heist is a whole new can of worms,
or spaghetti-o's you might say.

More to come!

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STOP THE WATER GRAB!
"Water is the driving force of all nature."
Leonardo da Vinci
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