Report from Santa Fe; Betty Rivera

Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education. For bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees, New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for, 1-800-428-T-E-C-H. I'm Ernie Mills. This is report from Santa Fe, our guest today, Betty Rivera, who is the Cabinet Secretary for the Department of Energy, Menorals and Natural Resources, and chairperson for the drug task force. Before I say anything to you today, we should take credit outside of prayers for we have set up the show today and it rained. That's right. We got lucky, didn't we? We sure did. Betty, I think it's important that we take an overall look, first of all, at your agency as such, the energy, minerals, and natural resources, and then we can explore why that agency

was chosen to do the drug for its task work. Thank you. We are comprised of five divisions at our department. I am Jennifer Salsbury's predecessor and she did a fabulous job of hiring these wonderful directors for these divisions. These divisions include conservation for our energy here in New Mexico. They also include minerals and mining. They also include the division for oil and gas. It also includes another division that relates to the forests, so we oversee the fires, and it also includes the state parks. We have about 480 individuals who are employees in our department. I think the reason why the governor chose me to be the chair of this task force is because my predecessor was the chair and it just made sense that it remained in the same office.

Basically, the drug task force is comprised of cabinet secretaries, including Frank Dubois, who is the secretary of agriculture, who is at New Mexico State University. We also have secretary Pete Majore, who is the secretary of the environment. The state engineer is Tom Turney. He is also a member of the task force, and there is another person who sits on, who is the Department of Public Safety, and at Ernesto Rodriguez, I am sorry, is the person who represents the Department of Safety on our drug task force. Without interrupting another, I found it interesting to make a comparison between what took place like with the home security and what you are doing here. I noticed, for example, when they first brought up the question after September 11, it

said we have to do some things, people said we have already worked on this, but they also, you have to try to bring in so many other agencies, and so much has left, we just haven't had any previous experience on it. You made one comment recently before the Legislative Finance Committee, and if my birdies are correct, said there is probably more than $15 million in disaster funds that come from the General Fund that you are looking at for the fire period of 2002, would it stop to predict when the fire period is going to be, when it starts and ends, isn't it? Well, it is, but they have the General Principle. It usually runs from April through the end of June, because after June we get the monsoons as we did today, but this year we had early fires, as you probably know, our fires occurred in Cocopelli, which was a disaster.

Several homes, 28 or 29 homes were lost at Cocopelli, and because of that, we were very, very sure to get on television and on the media, explaining to people about the danger of being in the forest and creating these disasters. As a result, we have many, many fewer fires this year than we actually did have last year, even though we are in drought conditions. I thought it would be just the reverse. Actually, you would have thought it would have been reversed. Had we not really discussed this with the public, I think we would have had many, many more disasters, Ernie. In fact, at a certain point, I believe it was two weeks ago, we had a 480 fires that had been reported for the year, and the previous year there had been 680. So we've tried to reduce the number of fires by informing the public and by letting everybody know the consequences for people who are smoking or are using open flames in the forests.

You know, I must ask you, when you took on this job, did you have any idea at the time that you would be moving into this kind of a situation with drought in seconds? Well, actually, I didn't. In fact, today we were talking about it that we thought this was going to be a side show, and indeed now it's the main show. So everybody is talking about the drought, and I think this is a critical time to really talk about conservation. And it's what we can all do to preserve the supply of water that we now have. Conservation is critical to our understanding and recognizing that we all need water and that we all don't want to do without it, and that we have an emergency fund, which is available to communities who are out of water. We'll go down that list, because that's pretty substantial, and that works out of the rut of trust board. And I also had to add to that, when I looked at what you knew coming in, and sort of the surprises involved in this, I remember when I came back from Vietnam in 1968, one of the figures that I saw was the number of casualties we had that were caused by accidents.

And this has to hit home with you when you start checking to say, you know, not all these fires are heard by lightning, the carelessness, and trying to educate the public and being cautious about what they do. I would imagine, it looks to me, is that 50 percent are through carelessness on the part of people in the forest areas. Sometimes that's correct, and I think that's why the state forests, as well as the national forest folks, have decided to close certain areas when there's a red alert. A red alert means, obviously, that there's a warning, a major warning, and that, therefore, the fires are in such a situation that fires could occur that closing is the only proper thing to do. We're finding that we've had to close certain areas, for example, Ute State Park was closed two weeks ago due to the fire at Poneal, and because of that, folks couldn't visit that

particular state park, but there were other areas that they could visit. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to show alternatives for folks who want to use our natural resources, that is our state parks and our national forests, and be able to maybe visit other places within the state. You and I did a show not too long ago, but long enough ago. And that was when you were on, I started to say Public Regulation Commission, but it was the Public Service Commission. Public Utilities Commission. Public Utility Commission that followed the Public Service Commission. I've noticed, though, because of your background, that you are aware of the communities that are out there now. You know, they're not a stranger to them. That's because of your years in New Mexico, I'm sure, but you've been to most of these places you're talking about. Absolutely. And I did a whirlwind trip this year just of the state parks, just so I can understand the immense amount of land that our department oversees.

I believe we oversee over 83 million acres of real estate for our state parks. And as a result, we also have our state forests that are also included in that 83 million acre number. And so I got to visit all our state forests as well as the state parks. And our state forests are real important to us as well, because they provide the areas for our wildlife and our very precious wildlife, which includes animals and vegetation. Now you have this two areas, and I looked at what your drug plan is looking at. One of them, of course, is drinking water. The main one I think was agriculture, how do you address their problems? You had wildlife and wildfires included in that as well. How are you splitting that up as you try to delegate these things? Well, it was very interesting the way it was established.

I got the job as a result of my predecessor having done a fabulous amount of work and creating a plan, a basic mitigation plan, strategic plan. However, that plan did not include actual implementation and emergency efforts. So what we did is we took basically the same template that was used previously. There are four impact groups. The impact groups consist of agriculture, as you said, drinking water, tourism and economic development, as well as wildfire, wild lands, so what wildlife. So what we did is we decided to start those efforts up again. The monitoring group, however, has always been working, and it's the monitoring group that is the group that signals to the drought task force what indeed is going on. For example, today, Ernie, we were brought up to date about our current drought conditions. The situations are not getting any better.

In fact, they are worsening. If I could just give you a couple of numbers. These are updated. These are updated. They are hot off the press. I just got it this afternoon from our group. The one group that really discussed what was happening is we have from the monitoring group. We have 0%, it's maybe 0.2% of a trickle of water that is coming on some of the surface water. The other groundwater issues are just as bad. We are finding that we are in extreme drought conditions in seven out of eight divisions within the state. The state is comprised of these eight divisions in a climate and weatherization spaces so that we can keep track of the various parts of the state, as you know, our state is very large. And we're not exactly all alike. For example, if you look at the Deming community, it's very, very different than Raton. As is the four corners area, very different from Hobbes.

The vegetation is very different, obviously our weather is very different in each of those areas, the four corners of the state. So what we've done is we get these reports from the monitoring group and it's that group that triggers the information to the drought task force, the drought task force then asks the subgroups to please come up with their reports. And today we were given quite a few reports from all of those committees. Now, what is the role of the water truss board in this? Well, that's a great question. When the drought task force was implemented under an executive order from Governor Johnson in 1998, the water truss board was not in existence. The water truss board is now, and it has been since 2001, is a subgroup of the New Mexico Finance Authority. And the New Mexico Finance Authority's primary job is to provide funding and financing for those communities in the state that need infrastructure renewals as well as new infrastructure.

So because of that, it was very logical that our drought task force would then seek the advice of the, or would move into basically the water truss board and ask it to implement the emergency plan. And the reason for that is because the same five members who are in the drought task force are also members of the water truss board. In addition to that, the water truss board has many, many more players. They have, for example, representative from the tribal Indian community. They have representatives from the agricultural groups as well as representatives from, I believe, the counties. And because of that, it's a, the scope is much larger at the water truss board. And it seemed logical that the water truss board should be the right place to make recommendations to the governor in this emergency situation.

Now, the, the governor met, you had mentioned the counties, for example, they met with the Association of Counties, the New Mexico Municipal League, with print bill functionality over there. He met with several of these agencies and then declared the disaster area for the state. I believe that was early in May that, that he made that declaration. Absolutely, actually, the, the declaration was issued late April, April 26th or 28th. I forget early May. And what he did then is he had leadership meetings with the various groups that included agriculture, economic development tourism folks, the folks from the municipal league as well as from the Association of Counties. Also we've, we've met with people from the forest, forestry division from the national forest as well as from, of game and fish and other federal agencies because we are partners with the feds in trying to figure out how we can work on a drought plan and how we can

really implement the emergency plan. Now, if we're looking at trying to, well, keep up with three major areas there. I saw, for example, that seemed to have agriculture, very important. And I think there was a number to call a New Mexico State University if they want, you know, if you, and this is going the way we have a crisis, if you have a problem, then it's passed on to the water truss board as well. Correct. And then you have the drinking water situations. They mentioned the responsibility to public entities here. Are the private entities included in this as well? Well, the problem that we have in New Mexico is, I'm sure you're very well aware of, is that we are, as a state, are prevented from assisting economic, in economic ways, folks who are private individuals or private entities because of the anti-donation clause that's

included in our New Mexico Constitution. There are basically four tests that will allow a person or a community, if you will, seek emergency funding. And the tests include one, that the community is out of resources, that the state has the resources to provide, that the legislature is not in session, and that there is no other method by which these folks could be helped, and does not fly in the face of the anti-donation clause. You know, years ago, you remember Senator Ike Smalling from Demi, everyone remembers the Big Bear, and I remember once there was a problem, it was during a snow period, and there were animals cattle in that area that just needed help. And what the Senator said, I talked to him, he picked up the phone and called and said that I, Highway Department, I want a great around there, and I wanted out in the hurry.

And I had asked him, I said, that is contrary to the anti-donation clauses, I gather it. And he said, who's going to complain? That is, that's an appeal to logic on that, but you're a lot of people like that that say, we'll act now, and we'll take the consequences a little later on, but it's safe to note a lot of cattle at that time. Right. Well, and by the way, we had those discussions in our group, and that is why if you look at the way this implementation plan is working, all the agricultural issues are just sent on to the agricultural sub-impact group. It's a group called the Farm Services Agency, and they're the folks that have the 1-800 number, that if anybody is related to ranching or farming and needs some help, they can call those folks. There are a lot of funds available through the USDA to assist those people. Now that's actually United States Department of Agriculture.

Yes. Political animal. We know that. But your background, of course, is in business, it's a successful business person, and no one has ever complained to me about your ability to organize business, you know, the effective in that sense. If we look now at where this is going, I would imagine that the, not just the drought program, it could be changed at a later date, it's going to be with us for a long time. Well, you're correct. The climatologist who is with us today in our meeting was Charlie Liles. Charlie Liles is with the U.S. Weather Service, and he basically told us that the drought looks like it will probably continue for two or three years. Looking at the way the droughts have operated in the past, and if you look back 50 to 54 years ago, you will find that indeed New Mexico was in the middle of a drought in the mid-50s. So you can see there are charts where you can see the drought has occurred.

We are also recognizing that even though we had a drought then, this may be greater in terms of impact to the state because we have a greater population, Ernie, and because we have done other things with our resources in the last 50 years. Well, you move over nicely then into the field of the state engineering because, and you know this, we've been close over the years, over and over the concerns about water. And the one issue that has never brought up is our drought now probably not much different from that. I remember 1957, but the difference that nobody makes allowances for the number of people that are coming in. Also some of the major businesses that have greater water concerns about it, you're right on that. That's right, there's a greater usage of water. But if you also look at the amount of rainfall and snowfall we've had in the last 20 years, you will see that there has been an increase in the amount of snowfall and rainfall. And because the snowpack was greater, obviously our groundwater was improved as were our surface

water terrains. So we have been very lucky in the last 22 years that although we've been growing and although we've had additional uses for that supply of water, we've been very fortunate in that we've been able to meet the demand with the kind of supply we had. You know, there's one term I always hate when I heard it uses, it's pushing the envelope. You know, they're getting too, too pushy on it. And I also know you like fireworks, I know that, from going back historically. And we're in a situation again with July 4th coming up. And a lot of people say, no, no, we've got to have the fireworks. It would seem they could find other things to do on July 4th, you know, without taking the risk. How do you feel about this? Well, actually, understanding that our culture includes fireworks as many cultures do, it seems to me that if there's time to celebrate, we should be able to do that.

We, I think there will be opportunities. The issue is, however, is because of the extreme drought conditions, the fireworks could obviously start a fire that could get out of control as was seen in the Sarah Grande in Los Alamos two years ago. So what we, I think what we need to think about as a community, as a state is to really consider changing our behavior and understanding that when we are living in extreme times like this, we have to modify what we do. And therefore, the modification should be something that should be natural for us and nothing that is constrained. Any suggestions for what we should be doing, a message you're trying to get across this people now? Well, what I'd like to suggest is that recognizing that there is stress on our supply, I think what we should really be considering is conservation matters. Those conservation matters include not only measuring how much water we are using agriculturally,

as you know, any 80 percent of the water that's used in this state, 75 to 80 percent, is used for agricultural purposes. And 25 percent, 20 percent, is used for private individuals in business. So I think what we should start doing, the first thing I would do, if I were, if I could wave a magic wand, I would want to have everybody start measuring how much water they're actually using. And then there should be a consumption charge for those folks who may overuse. Just as we see in some municipalities in the state, when you have a consumption that's greater than what is considered necessary, there's a surcharge involved. And as you all know, the best signal that a person can have is a pricing signal. And because it's a market issue, it's a pricing signal that all users should understand. You're hitting them in the pocketboard, kid.

Right. In reality, I wonder on your suggestions for what people should be looking at. I noticed the governor put out, and this at the time he gave the notification for the guard task force and said, you're holding your first meeting. But Tom Turnie, over at the state engineers office, they put out a booklet, and it was great. It was for guys like me that if I put a nail in the wall, the wall will fall over. But it tells you how to measure how much, it actually tells you how to read the meter. Yes. It was one of the best, about 24 page publication. That's right. I think they can still get copies of this. Yes, it's at the state engineers office. They also have something that I think is real interesting. They have a really great website. And if anybody is interested, they can always, it's the OSE, it's www.osc.state.nm.us. And I think that if anybody wants to look at how the state engineer is really progressing

and what the strategic plan is for the state in terms of water, one should reflect in that website and take a look, because it's very informative. The state engineer also has a conservation program in place. And it's those folks who have actually written even plans for public utilities for conservation. So I'm really impressed with what they've done. It's just that nobody has thought about it for so long, because it's only a problem when it hits you in the face, maybe. And so because of that, it's our basic cultural behaviors that are dictating how we operate. And we really should start looking at changing the way we think about water. I think both of you and I will agree that water always should be at the top of the state's priority list. You know, we mentioned education. One of the unfortunate things is they are at the top of the list when a campaign is going on, like the one we have now.

The after the campaign is over, they sink to the bottom. But water is when it should be up there with a degree of consistency. And then we move into the other areas, you know, such as education and such. What about the funding you'll be looking for from the legislature? I would imagine knowing you that you got a big eye for that right now. Well, we recognize through the Water Trust Board and the New Mexico Finance Authority that many requests are coming in for much needed dollars. I mean, lots of folks from various communities are really at risk right now, Ernie. And that's why we have an emergency fund to take care of those critical issues at this time. When the legislature meets, I'm sure there will be requests. The state Water Trust Board has come up with an overall number for the amount of money that's really needed to really fix our problem. And I don't want you to fall out of your chair, but it's $1.6 billion dollars.

That's building with a B? That's a big B, yes. Before I fall out of my chair, I'd like to thank our guest today, Betty Rivera, cabinet secretary for the Department of Energy, Menorals and Natural Resources, also the chairperson of the, and this particular good one for me, of the drought task force. And we want to thank you for being with us on report from Santa Fe. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education. For bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees, New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for, 1-800-428-T-E-C-H. The