Above is a modern replica of the Ark of the Covenant.
For those of you not familiar with the Ark, or have
forgotten your Bible stories from when you were a kid,
here's a defiition and some details from Wikipedia.
(An Ark from Italy has a connection to our principal investor
on the Water Grab, Mr. Bruno Modena from Milan, Italy. Read on, this gets fascinating.)
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"The Ark of the Covenant (Hebrew: אָרוֹן הַבְּרִית ʾĀrôn Habbərît, modern pron. Aron Habrit), also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in the Book of Exodus as containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. According to some traditional interpretations of the Book of Exodus, Book of Numbers, and the Letter to the Hebrews the Ark also contained Aaron's rod, a jar of manna and the first Torah scroll as written by Moses; however, the first of the Books of Kings says that at the time of King Solomon, the Ark contained only the two Tablets of the Law. According to the Book of Exodus, the Ark was built at the command of God, in accordance with the instructions given to Moses on Mount Sinai. God was said to have communicated with Moses "from between the two cherubim" on the Ark's cover." .
"The biblical account relates that during the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, the Ark was carried by the priests some 2,000 cubits in advance of the people and their army, or host.When the Ark was borne by priests into the bed of the Jordan, water in the river separated, opening a pathway for the entire host to pass through (Josh. 3:15-16; 4:7-18). The city of Jericho was taken with no more than a shout after the Ark of the Covenant was paraded for seven days around its wall by seven priests sounding seven trumpets of rams' horns. (Josh. 6:4-20)."
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Every synagogue (Jewish house of prayer) has some form of Holy Ark. Some are simple, others extremely elaborate. They don't look like the original Ark, but they serve a purpose not unlike the original, only modified, one might say. In time things become symbolic, ritualized, formalized, petrified, and in some cases outright garish, and strange.
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In the early 1970's, an Ark that had once been in a synagogue
in a small Italian town arrived in Israel.
The Jewish population of the town in Italy had dispersed,
the synagogue had been torn down, and the Ark and some other relics were stashed in a warehouse.
Bruno Modena took possession of the Ark and donated it to the
Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.
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It got an amazing amount of attention -
years were spent in the restoration. A special building, designed
by a well known architect in Israel, was constructed to display it.
Here's the link to a page from the Eretz Israel Museum website
You'll note the two tablets with the commandments on them
at the top - black with gold lettering. So, here we have a religious relic from Europe, built in the 18th century, with a lot of valuable ($$$$$$$$) elements. It almost sounds like a Catholic deal of some sort. They love expensive, outlandish relics of the Church's past, things they can somehow get their name attached to. Give BIG and receive salvation. A number of horribly misguided rich Catholics have bought into that lie. I'd bet though that when Bruno comes for visits to Israel he's treated like royalty. Well, that was part of the reason for doing it, right Bruno? As well as eternal reward? Your TICKET? (Photos above and further below: Israel Eretz Museum)
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What's fascinating here is the irony of having someone who
must be something of a hero for finding, and then GIVING, the
piece to the museum, and then who so openly violates the
Tenth Commandment, the one about COVETING WHAT
DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU. Your neighbor has
something you desire, in this case it's water.
It's not yours, but you want it.
You're guilty of violating the 10th Commandment.
You flaunt your desire right in God's sight,
and what? Figure somehow you'll be forgiven because
of your generosity? .
Many Biblical and Torah scholars would disagree with you. Some insist it doesn't work that way. Some insist that the active plotting and scheming, by trying in SOME way, ANY way, to GET WHAT YOU DESIRE, WHAT YOU COVET, WHAT BELONGS TO YOUR NEIGHBOR, IS ACTIVE DISOBEDIENCE TO THE COMMANDMENT. And that you'll pay the price. Period. (Check with your local Torah scholar.) .
Some people would declare you are possibly damning yourself
to an inevitable and disastrous surprise on your death. God, many say, is no respecter of PERSONS. The titles, the wealth, the acclaim, the ego...all mean nothing. If you're a gambling man Bruno....well, maybe you're betting that the scales the angel holds will tip in your favor. Maybe you know more about the Divine Courts than we all do. Maybe you've hedged your bets with gifts. Elaborate ones. I hate to tell you this, but I don't think it'll fly. .
"If the desire for something is based on need, then fulfillment brings contentment. If the goal, however, is simply to have more than everyone else, then we are doomed to disappointment and to ever-greater dissatisfaction. There’s always somebody who has something we don’t — which is enough to stir up within us envy to prevent us from being content with what is ours. That’s why coveting consumes its practitioner. In the most profound sense, those who covet fail to acknowledge the powerful truth that there is enough in this world to satisfy everyone’s need but there’s never enough to satisfy people’s greed." . "The deepest depth of vulgarism is that of setting up money as the Ark of the Covenant." . Thomas Carlyle Scottish Historian and Essayist 1795-1881 .
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The Ark of the Covenant has symbolism all over it -
literally and figuratively. Here are some interesting notes
from the JewishVirtualLibrary.org:
. "The Ark was used in the desert and in Israel proper
for a number of spiritual and pragmatic purposes. Practically, God used
the Ark as an indicator of when he wanted the nation to travel,
and when to stop. In the traveling
formation in the desert, the Ark was carried 2000 cubits ahead of the nation (Num. R. 2:9). According to one midrash,
it would clear the path for the
nation by burning snakes, scorpions,
and thorns with two jets of flame that shot from its underside; another midrash
says that rather than being carried by its bearers, the Ark in fact
carried its bearers inches above the
ground. When the
Israelites went to war in the desert and during the conquering of
Canaan, the Ark accompanied them; whether
its presence was symbolic, to provide motivation for the Jews, or whether it actually aided them
in fighting, is debated by commentators."
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(Above - A downburst out on the Plains, right about where the Augustin Plains Ranch LLC is, on April 9 of this year. Technically it's called a WET MICROBURST by weather guy types, smaller than 2.5 miles across, with a downpour and HEAVY winds.) .
(Continued from the JewishVirtualLibrary.org) "Spiritually, the Ark was the manifestation of God's physical presence on earth (the shekhina). The relationship between the Ark and the shekhina
is reinforced by the recurring motif of clouds. God's presence is frequently seen in
the guise of a cloud in the Bible (Ex. 24:16),
and the Ark is constantly accompanied by
clouds: When God spoke from between the
Cherubs, there was a glowing cloud visible
there (Ex. 40:35); when the Jews traveled,
they were led by the Ark and a pillar of clouds
(Num. 10:34); at night, the pillar of clouds was
replaced by a pillar of fire, another common
descriptor of God's appearance (Ex. 24:17)"
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Today many people, including some writers and historians, refer to Apocalyptic predictions that involve the Ark in the world and times we live in now. And of course, it's found it's way into contemporary culture via Hollywood. The "finding" of the real Ark remains a subject of endless conjecture. .
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. Below are illustrations and a song that concern an ancient story that was passed through the Nazerite brotherhood, a religious group that John the Baptist had belonged to. The story is related in the New Testament, but actually probably predates the time of Christ. Some scholars—e.g., G. B. Caird, Joachim Jeremias, Marshall, Hugo Gressmann, suggest the basic storyline of The Rich Man and Lazarus was derived from Jewish stories that had developed from an Egyptian folk tale about Si-Osiris. .
"We have in fact one of the cases where the background to the teaching is more probably found in non-biblical sources."
I. Howard Marshall, The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Gospel of Luke.
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Our friend Jerry Hoogerwerf, from Socorro, New Mexico, landed the other day to take us up for some aerial reconnaissance and photography.
Jerry's a terrific pilot, and believes in what we're doing.
It was a FREEBIE. Thanks a lot Jerry!
Thank God for our friends.
Off we go!
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Editor's Note: we had some corporate water nightmare stories here, but are re-posting them later in a new post/presentation. This post had gotten too long - the Ark story is what brings people who "search" for "whatever" and find this particular place. This post has had a BIG number of hits, second only to "THE RIO GRANDE" post, and the hits are mostly from Europe, with big additions from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Israel.... These guys are international operators, and so there's lots of curiousity about what happens when corporate pigs go up against a religious offense. It doesn't happen often.
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It's an apocalyptic story, from what I'm told. However, there's plenty of time and space for the corporate water theft/control stories later - they are becoming legion. These guys are just another drop in the bucket.
but life is not always predictable, no matter what
the PLAN might have been. But as the bumper sticker says -
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!
Indeed. Here's part of an interview with a real professional in our area talking about the issue, Dr. Fred Phillips. We're doing this in segments, Part 2 will be up later.
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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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"First of all, the hydrology is not very well-defined,
out in the region where this is being proposed,
and the decisions that are made are in the frame
of reference of the policy of the state with regard to
water development, not so much in terms of
hydrological numbers."
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"In my perspective, the San Augustin situation is a
classic natural resource conflict that
happens in the West....
and this has happened, time after time,
ever since the West was made part
of the United States."
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"And the situation that keeps reoccurring,
is that natural resources in an area that are
valuable, for one reason or another -
in this particular case it's because New Mexico
has basically reached the limit of its water supply,
so any water that is used for new purposes has to be
redistributed from elsewhere -
and so the prospect of
a large supply of under-utilized water in the
San Augustin Basin is a great inducement.
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And so people with money, with capital to spend,
have come in with the proposal that they lay claim to
that water, and then they export it,
and profit by doing so."
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"When they do that, they come into conflict with
the local people, who live in the area - who feel
that they have some inherent right to that resource.
That's the underlying cause of conflict in the area"
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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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"What you are alluding to is what hydrologists call
the basin scale water balance.
So how much water falls on the basin is precipitation, right?
How much of it runs off, and how much of it infiltrates
to the groundwater - these are the critical numbers
that are involved.
And in this area, almost universally, the vast
majority of the water that falls on the land surface
is held in the soil, and then re-evaporates or is
transpired by plants back to the atmosphere."
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"So, 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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That has aesthetic problems written all over it. . "I would say that there would be considerable resistance to that idea." .
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Has it ever been done on a scale this large?
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"Not that I'm aware of."
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The things I read about in the Mideast
sounded much smaller.
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"Yes. Typically, those are done on the scale of
individual farms, or small agricultural areas, where
several acres are devoted to precipitation collection
for every acre that's farmed, but we're talking
about the scale of an individual farm,
not a hydrological basin."
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Is it a practical idea? Is it doable?
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"In the sense of: are there insuperable technical
difficulties? No, certainly not. The main
difficulties are economic - is the value of the water
sufficient to get a return on investment,
if you have to make that much investment in infrastructure,
and they are social - the opposition of people
that live in the neighborhood."
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They keep saying that they can do this without
water prices basically going up at all, but with
the huge investment they'll have....
it doesn't sound realistic.
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"I'm reluctant to comment on that because I
certainly have not done any kind of cost/benefit study."
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Well, they won't present a business plan.
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"Right."
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They're not saying what they'll charge for the water.
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"Right. It's difficult for me to see how, at current
water prices , it could be economically feasible -
but without the specifics on the plan that's
difficult to evaluate."
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In what you know about the history of water
issues moving through the New Mexico courts,
what are the possibilities here? Is the Appeals Court
likely to go either way, or....?
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"I don't think that based on past precedent,
one can really make any prediction. In fact, if
you look at the history of recent important water
cases that have gone through the New Mexico courts,
they have frequently been reversed on appeal,
at various levels. So, there is not any highly consistent
pattern on controversial questions such as this.
Although there's obviously been major problems
and issues with the way that the plan has been
presented to the State Engineer, in that it resulted
in not being approved to date, there's nothing that
is inherently in conflict with the state constitution
and the water laws at a very blatant level.
These projects have been done in the past."
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But nothing this large.
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"Nothing this large, that is correct."
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Can the people just look forward to more
and more corporations moving in and trying
to talk about moving water? Are we going
to see more and more of this?
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"I think that that may depend in considerable part
on how things shake out with regard to
the San Augustin proposal."
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(To be continued on a future post....)
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Dr. Fred Phillips
Education
University of California at Santa Cruz 1972-76, B.A. Earth Science, B.A. History, with Honors
University of Arizona, 1976-79; M.S. Hydrology
University of Arizona, 1979-81; Ph.D. Hydrology
Positions
1981-1986, Assistant Professor of Hydrology, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro
1986-1991, Associate Professor of Hydrology
1991-present, Professor of Hydrology
1996-1999, Chair, Department of Earth and Environmental Science
1999-2001, Associate Chair, Department of Earth and Environmental Science
2005-present, Director of the Hydrology Program, New Mexico Tech
Professional Affiliations
American Geophysical Union
Geological Society of America
American Quaternary Association
Geochemical Society
Sigma Xi
Professional Services
Associate Editor, Water Resources Research (1989 - 1994)
Associate Editor, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (1989 -Present) Groundwater Committee, American Geophysical Union (1990 - Present)
Co-Convenor, Penrose Conference "New Methods for Dating of Geomorphic Surfaces," Mammoth Lakes, California, 12-17 October, 1990
National Research Council (National Academy of Science/Engineering)
Committee on Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards (1993 - 1995)
Executive Committee, NSF-Funded Science & Technology Center on Sustainability of semiArid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA) (2000 - present)
O.E. Meinzer Award Committee, Hydrogeology Division, Geological Society of America (2001 - 2003)
Hydrology Award Committee, Hydrology Section, American Geophysical Union (2002 - 2004)
Director, Cosmic-Ray Produced Nuclide Systematics on Earth Project (CRONUS-Earth Project), an NSF-funded research consortium involving 14 research universities and other research institutions in the U.S. and abroad (2005 - present)
Update - September 20, 9 AM The briefs by the "good guys" got filed September 13, and Carol Pittman sent us this synopsis (thanks!). The brief filed by Bruce Frederick for the "protestants" was joined by two others in support of his arguments - one by the State Engineer's Office and another by attorney Peter White for the Cuchillo Valley Community Ditch Association. All three are on links below Carol's synopsis. . Three briefs were filed with the Court of Appeals on Friday, September 13, answering
the “Brief in Chief” of the Augustin Plains Ranch. (Reminder: I sent you the
summary of the APR filing on or about August 12, 2013 in case you want to review
it.)
One of the three briefs was filed by the State Engineer, one by Peter White on
behalf of the Cuchillo Valley Community Ditch Association, and one by Bruce
Frederick representing the protestants who are his clients.
I have extracted statements from Bruce Frederick’s brief to try to give you an idea
of the arguments presented to the Court of Appeals. The statements are by no means
exhaustive, only representative, but will give you a good idea of where we’ve been
and where we’re going. Mr. Frederick has pointed out that the other two briefs are
in support of his arguments.
Anyone who would like any or all of the complete briefs, please let me know and I
will send whatever of those you request.
ARGUMENTS FROM THE BRIEF FILED BY BRUCE FREDERICK:
Nature of the Case.
The district court upheld the state engineer's decision to deny APR's application
for a permit to appropriate 54,000 acre-feet per
year ("afy") of underground water via thirty-seven wells to be drilled on APR's
extensive ranch in Catron County, New Mexico.
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According to its application, APR desires to pump underground water from its
ranch in Catron County to serve any future need for water that might arise in seven
New Mexico counties, including irrigation, domestic, municipal, commercial,
industrial, recreational, environmental, subdivision, replacement, and augmentation
of surface flows in the Rio Grande. ... the application never discloses who
specifically will use the water, what they will use it for, where they will use it,
or how much water each user may require.
Course of Proceedings and Disposition before the Office of the state engineer.
Protestants argued that APR's application provided only an open-ended list of
potential places and purposes of use that might or might not occur within a vast
area, and that it failed to specify how the total amount of water, 54,000 afy, would
be allocated among the various places and purposes of use. Protestants claimed that
this lack of specificity violated the prior appropriation doctrine, as codified in
New Mexico's Constitution, statutes and regulations, and that it made effective
public notice impossible to provide. APR filed a response brief but did not attach
affidavits or otherwise clarify how and where it intended to use the tremendous
amount of water it sought.
Synopsis of District Court’s Decision on Motion for Summary Judgment.
The district court divided its analysis into three parts. In the first part, the
court held that if APR's application failed to comply with New Mexico law, then the
state engineer "was required to deny the application." In the second part, the
court showed that APR's, application violated the statutory submission requirements
... and therefore, the application failed to comply with law and thus exceeded the
state engineer's statutory authority to consider or approve. In the third part of
its analysis, the court showed that APR's application also "contradicts beneficial
use as the basis of a water right and public ownership of water, as declared in the
New Mexico Constitution.” Based on its three-part analysis, ... the district court
entered an order upholding the state engineer's decision to deny APR's application.
... the court concluded that Section 72-12-3 requires applicants to disclose a
present intention to appropriate water in a specific amount, for a specific purpose,
and in a specific place.
The district court observed: Applicant's claim over water, in the amount of 54,000
afy, is larger than the maximum water supply available for the Carlsbad Irrigation
District's many users. This illustration from one watershed demonstrates the
enormous potential available for Applicant to
monopolize the waters that would have otherwise been available to other users
wishing to apply the underground waters of the San Agustin Basin to beneficial use.
... In reviewing the application in light of the permitting statute's language,
context, history and purpose, there is no genuine issue of material fact as to the
application's invalidity regarding purpose and place of use. ... With no details for
all of the required elements of a
water permit, the State Engineer could not perform his statutory duties ... of
determining whether the proposed appropriation would impair existing rights, be
contrary to the conservation of water, or be detrimental to the public welfare. As a
matter of law, the State Engineer could not allow an applicant to hold up other uses
of water under the doctrine of relation, when the applicant broadly claims a huge
amount of water for any use and generalizes as its place of use "any area" in seven
counties in the Middle Rio Grande Basin, covering many thousands of square miles.
APR Received a Pre-Decision Hearing That Complied With the Governing Statutes, and
it is not Entitled to an “Evidentiary” Hearing on a Legally Invalid Application.
The first indication that the governing statutes do not grant APR an absolute right
to an evidentiary hearing is the fact that these words, "evidentiary hearing," never
appear in the statutes.
... the error of OSE staff in accepting APR's application does not prevent
Protestants from pointing out the error and seeking dismissal in accordance with
law. Protestants' statutory rights of due process are equal to those of APR ...
The District Court’s Judgment Should be Upheld, Because APR’s Application is Legally
Invalid on its Face as a Matter of Law.
APR's application seeks authorization (1) to pump 54,000 afy of groundwater, (2) for
use in an area comprising tens of thousands of square miles,
(3) to serve any conceivable purpose that might arise. APR admits that it does not
know how, when, how much, or by whom water will actually be used at any particular
location.
APR's application designates seven counties where water might be used. As the
district court pointed out, APR's unclear intentions may explain the absurdly large
number of objectors-over 900. On the other hand, others likely failed to object
because they could not determine from the public notice exactly what APR has in
mind.
PLEASE NOTE: There may or may not be a hearing. The Appeals Court can decide the
case based on briefs only. Bruce has indicated in his brief that he’d like to have
a hearing.
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Here's the complete brief filed by Bruce Fredrick:
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