BAD NEWS FOR ELK & DEER HUNTERS IN NEW MEXICO

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Draining the San Augustin aquifer will put an end

 to the great hunting in our area - if not immediately,

 then soon enough. Magdalena is the gateway to

 some of the best elk hunting in the American West,

but pumping 54,000 acre feet of water annually
 and piping it to points still unknown is going to
 affect wells, and springs, and wildlife 
 all over the entire region.

So say scientists that have weighed in on the matter,
 and so naturally the New Mexico Department of
Game and Fish is one of the many "protestants"
 in the case against the foreigners.
Currently, the entire mess on their application
is before the state Supreme Court.  But this
case will be going on further - a new application,
new arguments, more New York lawyers, etc.,
 ad infinitum.
 Please "SHOUT OUT" to Governor Martinez
at the bottom of this page, and contact your
state representative and senator.
Please tell them:
NO!! ON THE SAN AUGUSTIN WATER GRAB!!
NO BAD SCIENCE!
NO FOREIGN OWNERSHIP OF
 NEW MEXICO WATER!!
PERIOD.

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Statements from

AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. FRED PHILLIPS

  Director of the Hydrology Program

New Mexico Tech

Socorro, New Mexico

Conducted early August, 2013

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 [Besides pumping water, the foreigners have

another brilliant idea, and that's how they'll

"recharge" the aquifer.]

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"The developers there, the San Augustin Ranch,

are proposing to put in wells that are very deep,

 and the number that I heard mentioned in the newspaper

and so on, was 3,000 feet deep, and they claim that

they will pump a confined aquifer that will have

minimum effects on the shallower aquifers,

which is where most of the local residents rely for

domestic water and water for livestock."

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"They also claim that they are going to induce  recharge

in some way, and this is not quite clear to me,

I have not seen the specifics on this, so I can't comment

very well on the merits of it,

but I have some inherent doubts about it....

because, the amount of time that's required for water

to reach the depths which they're proposing to pump

are very considerable, and studies haven't been done

on this, but if its typical of other basins in this part

of the country, that water at that depth, probably

recharged during the Pleistocene, during the last

ice age, more than 10,000 years ago, and the idea

that you could induce surface infiltration at the present

 time and resupply that aquifer that is 3,000 feet deep,

is somewhat....it's difficult to envision how

that's going to work."

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 Interviewer:  This claim that they can capture

all the rainfall that's being lost to evaporation seems

like an EXTREME concept, to put it mildly.  I googled

and found that the way it's done is to somehow seal the

land - and that this has been done in parts

 of north Africa and the Mideast. 

 What can you tell me here?

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"Any water that runs off - the San Augustin Basin

is a closed basin - there's no outlet to the ocean,

so it runs down into the middle of the basin and then

it sinks down into the land.  Whatever runs off

to the central playa, most of that becomes

groundwater recharge.

So, the only way to increase that groundwater

recharge is to reduce the amount that the plants

and the soil are using, and the standard method

for doing that - as you say - is to put some sort

of seal - asphalt, or plastic, or something, over the

 land surface, so you collect all of the precipitation,

all of the rainfall, and you put it

into some central collection area where it then

infiltrates downward....and that's technically

 feasible, but I have doubts as to whether converting

large areas of the landscape around the San Augustin Plains

to asphalt or something similar would be acceptable to

most people that live in the area."

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What about the idea that if you seal it off....

well, isn't there a chance that funguses, microbes,

 biological strangeness....that something, some 

problem, could occur beneath the surface?

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"Well, I think any 'biological strangeness' that

would be induced by putting a seal over the land

surface would be small in comparison to the

'biological strangeness' of denuding the landscape."

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Then, of course, there's no opportunity for wildlife.

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"That is correct, yes.  Once you've removed all the vegetation,

 then you've eliminated the ecosystem."

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 Note: The above is just a small part of the interview

we conducted with Dr. Phillips.  We have a blog post up

from last summer that has much more - see it here:

http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/08/dr-hydrologist-weighs-in-story-of.html

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The whole area is a "wildlife park" of sorts.

 Nearby US Forest Service lands offer beautiful

ponderosa forests, miles of trout streams, and

 numerous lakes. All over this country one

 can find herds of elk, deer,  and antelope, along
with gangs, rafts, or posses of turkeys
 (that's what ya' call a bunch of 'em).

 The region is also home to mountain lion, bighorn sheep,

 black bear, Mexican wolf, bobcat, fox, coyote, badger,

 bald eagle, golden eagle, ducks, geese, quail, dove,

 and many other species of wildlife.

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 This area of New Mexico is famous for having

 the world's largest elk. Elk in the area have scored

 over 400 Boone and Crocket.

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 Mule deer also grow large racks in this area,

with Boone and Crocket 200+ bucks killed

 in recent years.

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 The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish

is only one in a long list of "protestants" in

the legal proceedings against the foreigners -
Bruno Modena and son Vittorio, from Italy,
and unnamed others who are the foreign
 owners/operators/investors working under the
 corporate name of Augustin Plains Ranch LLC.
These are not ranchers, or a water company
from Europe, or anything like that.
These are big-time hustlers, scammers, schemers.
They refuse to divulge their sources of money;
they refuse to fully divulge corporate ownership,
or show a financial statement of any kind.
They smell like mafia, underworld,
 foreign operators of some kind.
Their Project Director, Michel Jichlinski, a
Norwegian who got his masters degree in Jerusalem,
was the President and CEO of a federal contractor
that got caught stealing millions of taxpayers'
 dollars from contracts in war zones in
 Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bribery was common - they called it "grease money"
the whistleblower testified.  And now Jichlinski
  works here, in what is openly known as one of
 the most corrupt states in the country.
Oh boy.
Luckily, there's a lot of opposition to this idiocy.

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   Here's just a few of the outfits signed-up
 against the WATER GRAB, there's a

 much longer full list. 

University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech,
 USDA, Gila and Cibola National forests,
 the National Radio Astronomy Observatory,
 Phelps-Dodge Mining Company,
Catron County Commission, Pueblo of Isleta,
Middle Rio Grande Water Conservancy,
the Bureau of Land Management, New Mexico
Interstate Stream Commission, U.S. Dept. of
the Interior, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation,
Socorro Soil and Water Conservation District,
Navajo Nation Department of Justice,
Coalition of the Six Middle Rio Grande Pueblos,
Gila Conservation Coalition and Socorro-
Catron Farm Service Agency.
(List from the Socorro El Defensor Chieftain)

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Just one question.
Yes.
With all this opposition how have
these guys gotten this far?
Why wasn't this blown away long ago?
This seems really nuts when one
 looks at the facts. 
Well, that's actually two questions and a
remark....but the same answer applies to all.
It's because New Mexico is so damned corrupt.
The foreigners have a ton of cash, and you
can be sure they've been trolling with it up in
 Santa Fe, and elsewhere.  They've probably
got a mess of fish on the stringer.
It's easy fishin' with Land of Enchantment
 politicos and so-called "professionals" in
state and federal

SERVICE.

The ones who take the cash are, of course,

 traitors to their people.  Shameless.  Worthless.

You kind of wonder if their conscience could kill 'em.

  Doubtful.
But in time, something will, some cancer or
fatal accident, some passage of life.
And then they'll get EXACTLY
 what's coming to them.    

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 Carreta de la Muerte, from northern New Mexico

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 It's artificial bullshit.

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PRAY FOR RAIN AGAIN! COURT DATE IN AUGUST

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 It's been a year since we held the

 "PRAYER VIGIL FOR RAIN"

the flyer information above refers to, that

we held at the Chapel of the Living Waters.

We're going to try to recreate the idea

in a new way, in a different, digital form.

Below is a painting, with our plea, of

the Hopi Indian Snake Dance, the oldest

ceremony and prayer for rain in North America.

The painting was done by E.I Couse, who

 witnessed the dance at a Hopi village in 1903.

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"....if the gods are good - and if all has been done well,
 the gods are good - rain is coming.
  As the late afternoon light wanes,
 dusk is usually hastened by the gathering of huge clouds,

streaks of rain appear over distant mesas, dude-wranglers
 marshal their charges into cars, eager to 'cross
 the wash' before floods fill it, Hopis from
 neighboring villages get themselves and

 their families loaded into cars; and then comes the long,
 swishing, sweet-smelling rain, pouring in cleansing floods
 from the roofs into the streets and over the edges of the mesa,

bringing hope and confident assurance that hearts 

were pure and the work was pleasing in

the sight of the unseen ones.

The Snake-dance always brings rain."

Erna Fergusson

Dancing Gods: Indian Ceremonials of

New Mexico and Arizona

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Jewish Tradition/Water/Rain/Prayer

"The land you are about to enter and settle is unlike the land of Egypt you have left, in which one could sow seeds and irrigate by foot, like a vegetable garden. The land you are going to settle is a land of mountains and valleys, which absorbs water as rain from heaven."
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 11: 10–12

Water plays a central role in Jewish tradition, both literally and metaphorically. The ancient Israelite agricultural system was dependent on rains coming in their proper times and in proper amounts. And throughout our liturgy, we are presented with the idea that rain is a blessing that reflects our societal balance and harmony.
Today, water continues to play a crucial role in our agricultural systems. And while we have developed advanced irrigation methods, ultimately, we are dependent on clean water and rains coming in their proper times.
During the High Holy Days we take stock not only of our own lives, but also on the state of the natural resources on which our lives depend. When we consider water, it has been quite a year indeed. We have witnessed a frightening series of droughts, forest fires, floods, ice melts, heat waves, and other extreme weather events. On top of these natural phenomena, hydro-fracking has emerged as one of the most significant environmental issues of our time.

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ABOUT THE VIDEO BELOW
"A Prayer for Rain" Jewish Farm School's first video in the Feast Forward series, includes a diverse cross-section of people reading an adaptation of T'filat HaGeshem  and the themes of the poem are connected to contemporary issues related to clean water, sustainable agriculture and climate change.

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Below is a music video of one of the most CLASSIC songs

about rainstorms ever composed.  "Cloudburst" from 

THE GRAND CANYON SUITE by Grofe.

One of the major sacred places of Hopi Tribal origins

and religious beliefs is the Grand Canyon,

known to the Hopi as Öngtuvqa, including the area of the

confluence. It is believed to be a place where many Hopi

ancestors lived and their spirits still dwell there including

many cultural resources that support its

revered status for Hopi people.

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From the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer 

For Rain.
O God, heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ
hast promised to all those who seek thy kingdom and its
righteousness all things necessary to sustain their life: Send
us, we entreat thee, in this time of need, such moderate rain
and showers, that we may receive the fruits of the earth, to
our comfort and to thy honor; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.

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LITANY FOR ALL CREATION IN A

TIME OF DROUGHT AND FIRE

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God of all creation, of rain and fire, of ponderosa and pinon,
we your people lift our prayer to You. 
Lord, hear our prayer. 

For rain in this thirsty land, and for hope in this hard time. 

Lord, hear our prayer.

For the people who are dealing with a water shortage and its effects - both financial and personal - from Magdalena to the Plains, from the Rio Grande Valley to Elephant Butte Reservoir.
 Lord, hear our prayer.

For firefighters on the front lines, for pilots and crews, and all who are working across the State of New Mexico at this time to contain fires - for their safety and stamina. 
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the animals and birds that have lost habitat or lack water sources, for the plants and trees, rivers and lakes, and all creation that is suffering because of drought and fire, and often because of human greed or human carelessness. 
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the farmers and ranchers, and others of our rural communities whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by fire, drought, or water theft. 
Lord, hear our prayer. 
 
 For the just and wise use of the water You have given us, to be gracious stewards 
of Your creation and good neighbors with all people. 
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the wisdom to conserve resources, and the grace to share them, with common sense and a dedication to protect what is a sacred trust - to understand that we are not so much owners as we are custodians of land, and to know that water is life. 
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the local, state, and federal authorities and leaders - to have Your courage, O Lord, and Your vision, to make hard decisions for the common good, and the will to stand up to financial and political powers that would rob the state's citizens of what is theirs. 
Lord, hear our prayer.

For a peaceful resolution to the difficulties that people face on the San Augustin Plains aquifer water project, and a fair, just, and timely answer from the New Mexico Court of Appeals. 
Lord, hear our prayer. 
Gracious God, You who hear the prayer of every heart, hear now the prayers we lift up to you now.

(A moment of silent prayer.)

Hear all of our prayers O God, spoken and unspoken.

Remind us that You are the One who listens and Who hears.

Grant us the wisdom to love one another, and this God-given earth, as You do.

We pray in Your name, and offer the prayer that Christ taught us:

Our Father, Who are in heaven, holy be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

 Amen

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 The litany above was written by Rev. Talitha Arnold of Santa Fe, NM. 
Permission is allowed to reproduce and adapt
for worship services or church education.
  Publishing rights are reserved.

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ORAL ARGUMENTS BEFORE APPEALS COURT SCHEDULED

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August 21 at 10 am is the tentative court date
 for oral arguments to be heard in the Augustin Plains Ranch LLC case.
The location is the Albuquerque Court of Appeals Pamela B. Minzner
Law Center, 2211 Tucker, NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106.

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"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power,

 is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."

James Baldwin

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