At Modernity’s Place: Water Deliveries to Central New Mexico and Beyond

This paper traces the social, economic and environmental situations that set the context for diverting water from the western slope of the Continental Divide to the eastern slope.  Popularly known as the San Juan/Chama Diversion Project, the 1972 measure focused on water delivery to the middle Rio Grande valley in central New Mexico to meet growing urban demands. The redirection and piping of waters emanating from Colorado was controversial for its time.  Opponents of the project called the water transfer wasteful and unnecessary and maintained that the traditional flow of water continue to move through the Colorado Basin reaching municipalities in Arizona and California.  My talk explores the cases made by competing interests to funnel water across the divide to and through the desert of New Mexico and beyond.  Whereas scholars have traditionally explored the movement of water along the western slope of the Rocky Mountains to cities in California and Arizona that acquired a great thirst, academics have paid less attention to the economic needs, legal implications and political forces that pulled water into New Mexico. Moreover, once diverted to new places, few have examined new applications of water use as Pueblos and Hispanos progressed from subsistence farming to commercial use.  This paper explores some of the changing imperatives for water use as Pueblo and Hispano communities found new and creative beneficial uses reflecting their demographic changes and 21^st century identities.