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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SENATOR HEINRICH COMES THROUGH!

So, after an ongoing fight of ten years+, one of the New Mexico delegation "steps up" as they say....good for Senator Marty!....Tommy Udall's probably daydreaming about how much money he could make helping the foreigners....just because he's a liberal and this is really an environmental and basic justice issue doesn't mean that he'll help the cause necessarily....rich liberals are just as bad as the flip side of the coin, rich conservatives....when these people smell more cash at the trough there's no bets on who's in your corner.... Here's the good Senator's op-ed piece from last Thursday's Socorro Defensor Chieftain.
 .
  http://www.dchieftain.com/opinion/columns/water-grab-on-the-plains-of-san-agustin/article_d329e5c8-32a6-11e8-b246-fbbb7f7947fc.html

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 

* 

BATTLE WON! LOSERS LOOK BAD ON ALL FRONTS

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Velanie Tafoya at The Golden Spur Saloon

holds up the best headline of the season!!!

Here's the article:

http://www.dchieftain.com/news/judge-stands-by-ruling-on-water-use/article_f52cfcc4-8997-11e5-bd41-8bb07dfd7022.html

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LAW #7 of the
 ELEVEN LAWS OF WATER
 Fight to free our water.
 Fight to keep our water pure,
 and fight to keep water reserves 
free and open to all.
 Never allow natural arsenals of water
 to be privatized.
Suzy Kassem,  Rise Up and Salute the Sun:
The Writings of Suzy Kassem 

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"Sacred Waters" by E.I. Couse

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TURN YOUR RADIO ON! COURT THURSDAY AT 1:15

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 The PSA above has been running a lot on
 Socorro FM since last Sunday morning.
Our sponsors for the airtime are:
Western Wholesale
Winston's Auto Service
The Golden Spur Saloon
Water Boy Transport
Man in the Maze Productions

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Dan Rufenacht won the $100 bill for the

BEST WATER THIEF at The Golden Spur Saloon's

Halloween Party.  Dan said he was trying to find

that perfect balance between a used car salesman

and a sleazy scumball member of some

"FAMILY" of foreign operators.

You done GOOD Dan!

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"Price hikes and water quality problems often follow on the heels of privatization. While governments may expect to lower debt and transfer the costs of infrastructure repair and maintenance via privatization, the willingness of private companies to make such investments depends on the profit stream. In fact, debt reduction, increased spending for upgrades and the companies’ guaranteed profit margins will ultimately be borne by citizens through higher bills. Privatization saddles consumers with the dual responsibilities of public debt reduction and corporate profitability, usually guaranteed by governments’ contracts.

Operating as a sanctioned monopoly, a private water company is able to exploit the lack of competition. Citizens have few avenues to voice dissatisfaction with broken promises. In fact, communities’ interests are often trampled and disregarded once public control is surrendered. Without transparency or accountability, water corporations are breeding grounds for bribery, kickbacks and other forms of corruption, many cases of which have been documented in the U.S. and abroad."

 . 

Click on the water below to see the full article:
"The ABC's of Water Privatization"

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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."

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 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.

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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.

. 

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 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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COURT DECLINES TO JUMP IN THE WATER, DROUGHT UPDATE

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 From Albuquerque Business First

The New Mexico Supreme Court has denied a

 motion to dismiss an application for a massive

 water project proposed by Augustin Plains Ranch LLC.

The motion was filed last month by the New Mexico 

Environmental Law Center on behalf of  a couple living

 in western New Mexico. They claimed that the application

 filed by Augustin is identical to one rejected by

 the state engineer several years ago.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2014/10/30/state-supreme-court-wont-stop-massive-water.html

 .

Carol and Ray Pittman

. 

"We continue to fight the water miners' efforts

 to take the water from the Augustin Plains

 basin.  It is important to understand that the

 refusal of the Supreme Court to hear our

 petition, while it was a disappointment, does

 not mean that we are out of options."

.

 . 

 "Remember that Bruce Frederick

 has to fight this battle for us on the

 basis of legal technicalities,

 as the water miners have provided no

 substantive information.  The applications,

 both new and old, fail to meet the requirements

 of the law.  Submitting a "new" application is a

  game being played by the Augustin Plains Ranch.

  And we need to stop the game."

Carol Pittman

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 And here's an article from the Socorro Defensor Chieftain:

Supreme Court side-steps water grab issue

by John Larson | November 6, 2014 | Filed under: News

The New Mexico Supreme Court last week chose not to

 consider a petition filed by Ray and Carol Pittman of Datil to

 order the Office of the State Engineer to dismiss an application

 from San Augustin Plains Ranch LLC.

As outlined in its application, the company’s plan is to pump

 54,000 acre-feet of water per year from the San Agustin

 aquifer and transfer it by pipeline to sell to communities as far

 north as Rio Rancho.

The Pittmans had asked the Supreme Court to determine

 whether public water shall remain open to appropriation for

 beneficial use or whether public water can be monopolized by

 speculators, not for their own use, but for profitable sales in

 future markets.

The petition for the writ of mandamus was filed by New Mexico

  Environmental Law Center attorney Bruce Frederick for the
 Pittmans on Sept. 22.

In the petition, the Pittmans argue that a second application
 filed by the company this summer is “identical in all material
 respects” to its original application filed in 2007, which was
 denied by the state engineer.

Frederick said the court may have rejected it because of a

 separation of powers issue.
“We’re still in limbo,” Frederick said.
 “The application is still sitting there in the state engineer’s office.”
Frederick said the state engineer must reject the 2014

 application for the same legal reasons that he denied the 2007
  application.

 

Carol Pittman said she and her husband still have recourse.
“We are going to back to the court of Judge Reynolds, who has

 already denied the current application, and ask him to enforce
 it,” Carol Pittman said. “We won’t give up until we absolutely
 have to.”

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 The drought monitor is important for numerous

reasons.  But in the San Augustin case it's helpful if

the foreigners can't use the drought to promote their

cause.  It's scare tactics - not unusual for mafia types.

*

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A Storm Across the Valley, Tim Cox

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Long Range Precipitation/Drought Outlook 
The official NOAA Climate Prediction Center
outlook for New Mexico precipitation during
November 2014 favors above normal
precipitation over much of the state. The
 outlook from November through January 20 
also leans toward better chances of above
 normal precipitation, especially across
southern New Mexico.

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1 Month Precipitation CPC Outlooks

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 3 Month Precipitation CPC Outlooks 

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ON THE RIO GRANDE - SAN ILDEFONSO, 1905, Edward S. Curtis

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  Below is an animation of the weekly U.S. Drought monitor for

 2014 (through early October) across the United States. Note

 how the drought worsens over New Mexico through most of

 May before improving from late May through this summer.

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 11/16
The Sangre de Cristo Range in Colorado and New Mexico,

 as well as the San Juan Mountains further west,
 all got their first major blast of winter this week.

The Rio Grande snowpack is off to a good start.

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STOP THE WATER GRAB!

“There can never be any real freedom on earth

 as long as people try to exert ownership over

 the natural resources of the world.”
 Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason 

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