WATER THIEVES LOSE AGAIN! THANK GOD!

 Here's the latest, hot off the press you might say....from the Socorro Defensor-Chieftain.... HOT DOG! 

 The foreigners got shut down again!....more to come.....

Judge denies pumping of water from the San Agustin Basin

Story by Jessica Carranza Pino, Editor | Apr 5, 2024

Judge Roscoe Woods, Seventh Judicial District Court Judge, denied the application from the Augustin Plains Ranch LLC to pump 54,000 acre feet of water a year from the San Agustin Plains basin at the Catron County Court house this morning, April 5, in Reserve, New Mexico.

There was standing room only with over one hundred people present at the hearing in protest as lawyers shared their arguments for almost five hours.

The State Engineer, the Carol Pittman protestants group, the Catron county board of commissioners and the community protestants argued the application was speculative, had no commitments from an end user and lacked an imperative necessity for the water, among other arguments.

In their defense, the Augustin Plains LLC’s lawyer argued there was a demand, a thorough proposal of plans and listed six counties as the targeted end users of the water.

The San Agustin Basin, about fifty miles west of Socorro, supplies water to northwestern Socorro and northeastern Catron County. The first drilling application was submitted by Augustin Plains Ranch, LLC in 2007.

*Editor’s note: a detailed article will be available pending a written order from a judge.

FOREIGNERS LOSE AGAIN

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FOREIGN WOULD-BE WATER THIEVES
TURNED DOWN!

"TELL THE GUMBA NO AGUA"

BUMPER STICKERS CREDITED FOR

AIDING IN DECISION!

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The following info was released yesterday by the

New Mexico Environmental Law Center.

********

State Engineer Denies Augustin Plains Ranch
Groundwater Application

San Augustin Plains community members were overjoyed by the State Engineer's denial of the most recent iteration of Augustin Plains Ranch’s application to mine 17 billion gallons of water annually.

We have been saying it for years: Augustin Plains Ranch’s application for withdrawal of 54,000 acre feet per year of groundwater is speculative. On August 1st, the State Engineer agreed and denied the ranch's application to withdraw groundwater from its property near Datil.

Speculation means, simply, that an applicant has not clearly and specifically stated "the purposes, places of use, or amounts of use" for the water they are applying for, including details on how the water would be delivered to any users.

The Law Center and our clients convinced the State Engineer to deny the Ranch's first application in 2012 and we also won on appeal in state District Court in early 2013. Since then, the Ranch has filed multiple applications, corrections and modifications.

This has been a critically important fight for us and our clients. A bad decision would have set a precedent that could dry up rural communities throughout New Mexico.

Read More: See the Augustin Plains Ranch page on our website and read the State Engineer's Report and Recommendations

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I'M BACK!!! THE RETURN OF THE FOREIGNERS

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 .

The PR outfit for the Italianos has issued

a press release (August 16) stating that 

the new application to steal the water will be

published now in the papers in the region - 

as required by law.

THE WATER WAR IS BACK ON!!!

We'll show you the press release and

comments about it as soon as

 we can grab some time.

Patience. It's just beginning. Again.

The misguided have returned.
.

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STOP THE WATER GRAB
"Since water is vital to life, shortages can foster severe crises
including the following four categories of water wars:
[1, 3, and 4 do not apply here but 2 DOES!]

2. The wars for entrepreneurial control:
These wars are evidenced by transnational corporations purchasing
water companies and resources around the world.
Since these companies are in business for profit, once they
have a monopoly on a system the price of water usually escalates.
For example, in the years following the privatization of water services
in Britain, the price for water increased an average of 67 percent and
in some areas up to 450 percent.
People who couldn’t afford to pay their bills had their
water shut off. This resulted in a sixfold increase of dysentery."
William Marks in The Holy Order of Water

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WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE TO DROP

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Everyone awaits the new application from our foreign

would-be water thieves.  People expect it,  but the

 clock ticks on and still no word.  Yet.

Perhaps they think people will forget about them.

Not a chance Godfather.

Let's do battle! 

*

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STOP THE WATER GRAB

"As the planet dries up and water supplies are

bought up by private interests, we have begun moving

into a new economic configuration, where sprawling

cities and agribusiness operations thrive and

the wells of private citizens and local farmers

run dry."

Maude Barlow & Tony Clarke in

BLUE GOLD - The Fight to Stop the

Corporate Theft of the World's Water 

* 

POLITICAL THINKING FROM SANTA FE & HALLOWEEN WEIRDNESS

Edited from a report by Carol Pittman

Eileen Dodds from the San Augustin Water

 Coalition attended the Aug 31-Sept 1 meeting

 of the Legislature's Interim Committee on

 Water and Natural Resources, and listened to

 some informal discussion about the

 WATER GRAB.

Here's her synopsis of what was said by some

of the members:
********

Representative Bealquin "Bill" Gomez, District 34

(Dona Ana), said that he was not in favor of transferring 

"that much water and hurting the small communities."

  He further stated

"This transfer will likely impair existing water rights,

and I will not let it happen"  In a personal email message

to this writer Rep. Gomez reported that he had "read out

the section of the reasons the state engineer could use to

turn down a request to move water from one region to

another.  It states that if the change would harm the rights

of other people in the area it would be one of the main reasons

to turn down the request for transfer of water."
********

Bill McCamley, who represents the 33rd District

(Dona Ana), stated that he wants to see subsidence studies

first.  State Engineer Blaine admitted that subsidence

would be a problem, but that no study was planned.
********

Senator Cisco McSorley from Dist 16 (Bernalillo),

asked for the OSE to do a psychological impact study

of the effect on the citizens losing the water.  He pointed out

that there were multi-generational families ranching

the Plains, and that they had hopes of their children and

grandchildren continuing the tradition.

He is opposed to those families "losing their heritage."
********
Senator Peter Wirth, Santa Fe, asked about states
that had legislation that put large transfers in the
hands of the legislators.
********

********
And last, but not least, 

Representative Candy Ezzell, a rancher from

District 58 (Chavez) stated:

"I'll fight this transfer with every bone in my body."

.

 A Note to Representative Ezzell: 

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.

 Our blog is sponsoring a SPECIAL PRIZE at

The Golden Spur Saloon's Halloween Party!

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 .

 “The dead weren’t scary. 

It was the living you had to watch out for.” .

Eileen Wilks, Mortal Ties

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WE HAVE A DATE WITH THE DEVIL!

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The next round with the foreigners
 is now scheduled:

Thursday, November 12, at 1:15 pm

Socorro County Courthouse

*

We'll have more up about the issue at hand -

the who-what-why - but basically it's a legal strategy 

by the enemy: trying get an earlier decision

that ruled in the good guys' favor

to be set aside. 
It's legal wrangling.
This is NOT a hearing on their latest application.

More coming.

*
GOOD NEWS!
Some members of the New Mexico Legislature's
Interim Committee on Water and Natural Resources
have all made recent statements questioning or
outright opposing the WATER GRAB.
 Eileen Dodds of the Water Coalition got some
terrific information at their Aug 31-Sept 1 meeting.
We'll have some quotes and more in our next posting.

 .

Drought Fears Subside -
LLC Shuts Up!

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 Compare the above to the situation

in July of 2013 - 27 months ago.

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.

At this point in 2013, and for months and

months following, the foreigners kept up the

salesman's spiel that only NEW sources of

water would save us from the drought,

such as, or most especially, the aquifer they
 want to tap, the San Augustin Plains aquifer.

Our only hope was to welcome the

thieves and end up buying what was ours

to begin with.  What bullshit.

  There were other new sources of water,

and so we tapped into these other "reserves" 

 one might say.  Keep the devil out of here.

.

.

They've now shut their traps about drought. 
We pray further that they'll eventually shut up
about all of it, and stay in (or go back to)
 their homelands,
 where fraud, theft, and lying must be typical 
 national pastimes. 
 At least among the high and mighty....
at least (or especially) when it involves Americans. 
It certainly appears as such.

. 

.

 Southwest Colorado just got off to a

 good start for this year's Rio Grande snowpack.

Pray for Snow and get the skis out!

 . 

 .

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LLC AGAINST THE ROPES - ROUND THREE COMING UP

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.

When we last spoke with you: The state engineer’s office had given the Augustin Plains Ranch LLC until the end of the year to provide more specifics on what type of water rights would be developed, how the water would be used and what municipalities or industries would benefit.

The foreigners, even with all of their legal-beagle trash working full time,
 couldn't come up with diddly-doodle, and so they LOST Round 2. 
 Now they have another "revamped" application submitted to the state engineer.
  Round 3 will start up as soon as the state engineer posts official NOTICE
 of the new application in the local papers.

  Our foreign operators seem unable to get a "taker" for the agua
 who will sign on the dotted line.  That's not surprising really. 
 Even the dimwits in Rio Rancho would be,
 could be, should be....hesitant about getting  involved 
 in un-American, anti-American crap like this.
 If the Modena Organization is encouraged in any way, 
you can be sure the Veterans groups and  pro-Americans
 across the state will be screaming bloody murder,
when all the facts come to light.
 And well they should.  According to law:

New Mexico water belongs to New Mexicans....

PERIOD!  Not to a bunch of foreign thieves

who hide behind lawyers and scumbags like
 their Project Director, Michel Jichlinski, whose
 firm got caught red-handed stealing millions and millions
 of American tax dollars on war zone contracts in Iraq 
and Afghanistan.  These people are dangerous....
 these people are pigs.

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STOP THE WATER GRAB!
“If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of profit
 you will arouse great resentment.” 
Confucius

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MAGDALENA'S WATER SHUTTING DOWN

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Sometime this afternoon the water in the Village of Magdalena

is going to be shut off.  The well is going dry, we are told,

 and while there might be some temporary relief, the actual 
solution being discussed is a new well, deeper, and weeks

 (months?) away  We'll have more details up as soon as we
 gather more info.  The National Guard is coming in with a
 water tank of potable water from someplace this evening.
Other tankers, from New Mexico Tech and a private outfit,
should be here sometime tommorow.

  Stuart Dyson of Channel 4 in Albuquerque is roaming
 around the area, talking to residents and officials,
 trying to get a handle on what's going on here. 
 The Channels 4 and 13 folks, as well  as CNN,
 have either just arrived, or have already left 
with stories in hand.
.
  As unfortunate as this is, it draws attention to WATER
realities in this area, in this state.  It could also bring
 attention to the San Augustin aquifer issue.  It could
initiate the process of exposure of who these
 misguided Sons of Abraham actually are.
The press can be relentless.
The press can get damned nosy.
.
The more Magdalena's problem is in the news,
the more these media folks will dig, and when they see
 the "STOP THE WATER GRAB" or
"TELL THE GUMBA NO AGUA" bumper stickers,
well, maybe in time they'll start asking more questions.
It's in their nature, as they say. 

. 

 If these foreigners were pumping the aquifer right now,

Magdalena would most probably be looking at a new well

a heck of a lot deeper than what's currently being discussed.
Like hundreds of feet deeper.
Ask the desert dwellers of Israel if they would allow
a bunch of foreign corporate thugs to get their water;
ask them if they'd allow  such a hideous nightmare
 on their "God-given" land.
Below: the Pool of Siloam, made famous in the
New Testament, when the blind man got his sight here.
.

.
I am.  I'm contacting the Israeli government tomorrow
to ask for advice as to how to deal with water thieves, 
so we can forward it to Governor Susana Martinez.
"Desert Dwellers" have much in common, especially
with guarding their water sources from enemies,
or so-called enemies.
This is a water war,
 and the Israelis know a lot about this stuff.
.
None of these foreigners are so-called "Stakeholders."
None of them live here. None of them give a rat's ass
 about New Mexicans, or Americans.
They have passports from where? 
 Israel, Norway, Germany?
 It's all about money.
Big money.
.
The Project Director for the San Augustin project,
Michel Jichlinski, got his Masters in Economics from the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  He's also a proven thief,
liar, and general con artist.  He was the President and CEO
at the Louis Berger Group, a federal contractor in Afghanistan
and worldwide, when they got nailed for stealing millions
of U.S. dollars by cooking the books, bribery, and
cultivating a "culture of fraud" within the company,
 as the whistleblower put it.
NAILED for the biggest fine ever for a war-time contractor.
Thieves.  And this guy was the "Boss" through it all.
And now he's come to the Land of Enchantment.
God save us.
.

.

Below: Darrell Petttis, owner of The Golden Spur Saloon

in Magdalena, gives Stuart Dyson an earful about water,

drought, and the San Augustin water issue

with the foreign "investors."

It's all tied together. 

The timing is probably right on target.

Further below: Water trucker Richard Smith.

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 Here are links to some of the news stories on

 Magdalena's water crisis.

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http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/nm-town-runs-out-of-water/-/9153762/20444262/-/2f2aku/-/index.html

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http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/local/southwest/nm-villages-water-supply-running-dry

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http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3059146.shtml?cat=500
.
And here's a link to a Mountain Mail News
web article that's basically a statement from the State Water Engineer, Scott Verhines, about the Magdalena situation.
.
http://www.mountainmailnews.com/?p=2586

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.Bottled water - lots of it - is available for all residents at the Fire Station.
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Magdalena residents getting some water

From the Mountain Mail News
by Susann Mikkelson | June 10, 2013 | Filed under: Breaking News

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Since the Trujillo well in Magdalena went dry last Wednesday morning, various communities and agencies have been working with Magdalena city and officials to supply water to its residents.

“Today, we received water from the VLA and Alamogordo,” Marshall Larry Curly said Friday. “Each truckload of water is being tested to ensure chlorine levels are appropriate before water is being distributed.”
Curly said that as of Friday water is being fed through the water hydrant at the highest altitude, off of Kelly Road, and it is flowing back into the city water system and providing water to many households.
“We have put 26,000 gallons back into the system as of this morning, and will have 40,000 in by the end of the day.” Curly said. “Right now there is water down to about Sixth Street, and there should be water to Tenth Street by this evening.”
According to City Clerk Rita Broaddus, the city has applied for and received an exploratory permit from the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer to begin searching for the best place to drill a new well.
“What we need now is the money to drill,” Broaddus said.
The city has requests for emergency funding through Community Development Block Grant emergency funding program out of Washington, D.C., the New Mexico Department of Finance Administration and the New Mexico Finance Authority, as well as the New Mexico Environmental Department.
In the interim, the city is also working to bring back online the Spears Well, which was taken offline six to eight years ago because it did not meet new codes with regard to managing chlorine levels. There were also some plumbing and electrical problems with the well.
“It only pumps 30-35 gallons per minute, so it is not a production well for the city,” Broaddus said. “For now, we can take the chlorinator from the Trujillo Well and put it on the Spears Well to ensure that the water is properly chlorinated.”
The Trujillo well pumped 180-200 gallons per minute, before the well went dry. The city is currently working on the plumbing and electrical to bring the Spears well up to date, and then will begin filtering water from this well into the system.
Curly said that porta-potties have been set up throughout town for residents’ use until everyone has water through the city water system again.
 .

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THE INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY INVOLVED HERE

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.
There's a LOT OF REASONS why the
proposal by Augustin Plains Ranch LLC
is STUPID.  Here are a few.

.

1.  The project is unproven science in action.
There is serious disagreement by almost
 everyone who's looked this over about how
much water is actually in the aquifer,
and what the effects of pumping 54,000
acre feet of water per year would be.
The very real possibility that the Rio Grande
and Gila Rivers would be significantly,
 adversely, affected doesn't seem to phase
 the applicants, Augustin Plains Ranch LLC.
Neither does the probability that everyone's
wells in the area would go dry.
.
The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and
Mineral Resources is currently conducting
reasearch on the Rio Grande connection
to the aquifer.  Their "San Agustin and
Alamosa Creek Study" will be finished in
December of 2014.
.
2. The project is all about money, period.
The worth of the water - this volume, for up
to 300 years - is absolutely incredible.  You are
literally talking billions and billions, and it's all
tied to GROWTH, growth for Albuquerque,
Rio Rancho, maybe Santa Fe,
 and wherever else developers and politicians decide 
will be blessed with more water - for what?
Growth. 
Growth of what?  For what?

 More of the mess they can't get a handle on now? 
More stripmalls?  More neighborhoods
that require grills and bars on windows and
 doors, or if you're rich enough you park the
family and pets in a "gated community," so much safer -
 but either way, people look out at the world
 from the eye of an urban or suburban prisoner,
because New Mexico IS dangerous now.
It didn't used to be, well, not much, but it is now.

So let's grow...with no thought beyond a
fast buck and a new lease on
The Land of Enchantment!

More trash food....more teenage pregnancies....
more gang violence....more police shootings....
more stuff, and more stuff, that isn't being
at all adequately addressed now,
 and sure as hell will never be dealt with
intelligently if money rules the game.
You have to love people more than money.

We can't allow decisions about water to be
 made on the basis of cash (read: GROWTH).
It's unethical; it's unconstitutional,
(the words of an attorney, not a PR flack).
.
3.  The project is inherently NUTS.
The very idea that somehow foreigners could
 get their hands on this much water, and then
 sell it back to us, the citizens of New Mexico,
when we technically OWN the water according
 to LAW, is too bizarre for words.
This is a Ripley's Believe It Or Not episode.
.
4.  It adds to the abysmal level of corruption.
New Mexico's report card is dismal
when it comes to honesty and ethics among
office holders and state officials alike.  All
you have to do is look at the past of the LLC
Project Director, Michel Jichlinski, to see
possible problems here.  He was the "Boss" at
a company that got hit with the largest fine
 ever for a war-time contractor - they stole
 millions of tax dollars through fraud, bribery,
accounting trickery, etc.  This guy lies openly
in "Letters to the Editor" concerning the issue
before us.  It's all on the blog.
Things are bad enough here already - we
don't need any additional ethical sewage.
This guy knows a lot about bribery, and worse.
.
5.  Foreign ownership of our water is stupid.
Water is life!  We simply cannot allow a
bunch of shadowy corporate thugs to get
their hands on the pink slip for the agua.
  No one in their right mind would let this pass.
Jichlinski got his degree from the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Do you think the Israelis would allow a
scheme like this on their soil?
You'd probably be looking down the barrel of
 an Uzi if you even suggested the idea.

In Israel, a land owner DOES NOT OWN
the water beneath his land, and is not free
to speculate in "open-market" realities
with the water - it belongs to the state.
Period.
Change the "state" to the "citizens"
and you've got New Mexico.
Period.
.
A foreign corporation/investors group trying to
get their grubby hands on water in Israel?
Best outcome: taken to the airport.
Worst outcome: stupidity brings its own rewards.
.
6.  You don't make big deals with unknowns.
The "investors" are headed by a man named
Bruno Modena, along with his son Vittorio.
Their last escapade in the States was a
so-called eco-resort in Maine -
 the details are on the blog -
 it could basically be called an
entirely new form of extortion. 
But almost no one ever saw them.  Lawyers'
offices in New York that no one can ever find,
hidden away, on purpose obviously.
The "investors" hang out overseas it appears.
They just hire more characters here -
 PR flacks, lawyers, managers of various stripes,
 so-called experts - to do their bidding.
.
You don't go selling off the rights to pump
water that's the equivalent of half of
Albuquerque's thirst each year,
without knowing something about who the
hell is getting this water.
There's no transparency here - no corporate
financial statements, no tax returns, no nada.
People that hide behind corporate veils are
NOT people you want to do business with.
Everything that's known so far is OFF BASE -
you wouldn't sell these people a good dog,
but just maybe a bad one if it was a biter.
There's more if you'll scan the early posts
on the blog - January forward.
.
7.  This would have horrible ramifications.
No one has ever tried to get their hands on
this volume of water in New Mexico.
They don't parade this fact; they're at least
smart enough to figure that certain realities
don't need to be brought up.  It'd be upsetting.
Let's talk a "partnership" with New Mexico
"stakeholders" is what they hype publically.
They've never shown a business plan.
We have no idea what they're thinking
 about what they'll give us as our portion of
the profits....I'm sure they'll be shrewd.
. 
Their claim is that they have the capital 
 and resources to pull this off -
three to five hundred million bucks
 has been mentioned in various sources,
and that is used as an excuse basically,
 to let them in the door.
We Can Do It.  We're Big. 
 We're International.
.
Jichlinski is their key on this.
He could probably float the project under
any number of corporate names - he's tied in
to a big batch of multi-national contractors,
 and money boys, none of whom,
you can be damn sure,
 have even the slightest interest
 in what's good for New Mexico,
or America.
This craziness will be popping up all over
the state, if these guys get away with this.
Once you let this kind of evil in the door,
you're almost done for. 
 You'll be fighting the tide for generations,
 and paying the piper. 
.
International, big-time outfits are watching
what happens with water very closely....
everywhere, but the American Southwest
is a facinating point of reference because of
the severity of the drought and the cash possible
 if you could pull something off....
It's all over the web....it's big MONEY action.
The "comodification" of water is real, it's
happening all over, including here in the States.
Water....they also say it's what the
 future wars will be about, globally, regionally.
.
How do you think the Old West in Catron
and Socorro Counties will react?
This is a place where some of the
Vanishing West vanished,
and where some of it still lives on.
I'll make you a bet....
I'll bet you a round for the house that....
.

                                                                                                       "The Tenderfoot"

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Postscript
.
There's more that could be listed....such as the
serious damage that this could do (is doing)
 to international relations. 
 There's not much use for "foreigners"
in this part of the country  to begin with. 
 If you add on the idea that these guys are basically
 seen as thieves, water thieves....well,
you can see where all this could go....the Colts
and Winchesters and god-only-knows-what
kind of explosives (this is mining country)
will come out in time, and before you know it
 you've got national and international media people
 sniffing all over the place -
 trying to get some background on 
who's who in the water war -
 which is the last thing, the very last thing, 
the Modena's and their co-investors want.
Not all media outfits are bought, and/or sold.
Some really are investigators.
.
In that sense, for the "investors,"
 it's a Catch 22.
If they get a green light to begin the project,
the violence will probably start right up,
which brings the spotlight of big time media attention.
  And if they got that attention,
which they avoid like a vampire does
 the light of day,
they'd probably either lose the project,
once New Mexicans were AWARE of it,
REALLY AWARE of it,
 or have one devil of a time getting it
to completion.
.
  There's everything from
 archaeological sites on the pipe route,
any pipe route in this country,
 to "threatened" and "endangered"
 species issues,
to plain orneriness on the part of some,
to even more technical and legal arguments,
that could tie this up for a long, long time.
Or at least that's what logic tells us.
Why do these characters insist on pressing on?
The "good guys" need to remember this:
stay calm.
 The lawsuits could fly
  as fast as the bullets.
Get more money for the legal fund,
get ready to "dig in."
   .

                                                  "Smoke of  a 45"

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STOP THE WATER GRAB!
“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas,
 went bang in the noonday sun.” 
Kurt Vonnegut
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater  
.

.
Update: 9/23
Since this post there have been numerous
"changes" to the approach the foreigners are taking.
 Now they claim they won't drain the aquifer,
but rather catch ALL the precipitation that falls
in their domain, and RECHARGE the aquifer.
Read more about it here:
http://stopthewatergrab.blogspot.com/2013/08/dr-hydrologist-weighs-in-story-of.html
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