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• 1 2024-08-17T14:40:20+00:00 Adjudications 3 plain 2024-08-18T02:07:22+00:00 Adjudications are long and grueling processes that once decided can have devastating effects on acequia communities and their members. They can take many forms but all start with a hydrographic survey. This is a crucial step in protecting one's water rights, they map current water use in a district and in the case of surface water such as acequias, they assign a tract number to the irrigated parcel. This survey determines what the offer from the State is for a water right hence its importance. However, if the staff from the Office of the State Engineer conducting the survey sees no indication of irrigation at the time of the visit the owner of the land will receive no surface water meaning they would be restricted from any water. To remedy this, parciantes can file an omitted claim to regain water rights. However, that also can become a long battle. The true violence caused by adjudications is that historic communities and families must become defendants of them in court. That they have to fight the federal government for rights guaranteed to them since the treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo.
  Whether water rights will be privatized by an adjudication is determined by whether water priority is determined by ditch or tract. Water priority determined by ditch takes into account that acequias serve a community and is determined by the well documented history of water flow through the acequia. Water priority determined by tract is much more damaging. It ignores the history and purpose of acequias and assumes that acequias act more as pipes of water highly regulated, easily distributed and without the supervision or need of neighbors. It determines water rights for each specific parciante based on use and first use. Tract specific dates divide communities as it pits neighbor against neighbor as they compete for the earliest priority of the ditch. This erodes acequia communities, joining together to defend against adjudication, cleaning out the acequia, or governing the acequia all becomes difficult or impossible. It also disregards the physical functioning of acequias. As a gravity fed water way for the parciante at the end of the acequia to receive their water they need parciantes before them to also need water to create enough pressure to reach them and keep the water level up. If the only water that is allocated for the acequia for a parciante at the end of the Acequia that water will either evaporate or soak into the ground by the time that it reaches that land. And the very method of determining water priority for tracts is usually determined by documents never meant to record water rights. This causes water rights to be left to the mention of a ditch in a land boundary or in the mention of a deed instead of determining water rights by the well documented history of water in acequias. Once adjudicated tract specific water rights allows for land to be sold without concern for the acequia or the duties required of them such as cleaning them out or paying dues. Adjudications are a marathon of paperwork and decisions that can decimate the way of life that parciantes have lived for centuries. They are a weapon of the state to dilute and weaken acequia communities to free land for development and release water for industry or other farming practices.