EXCERPT:
"In the middle Rio Grande, including Socorro, water-right prices range from $12,000 to $15,000 an acre-foot.
The most expensive water rights are near water-strapped Las Vegas, N.M. An acre-foot there is going for $20,000 to $30,000, Turner [Albuquerque water broker Bill Turner] said."
COMMENT:
At prices in this range, it will be corporations and state and federal governments who will be able to afford such prices. These water transfers will not be by The People. This is the beginning for New Mexico, folks. Time to act in solidarity.
Staci Matlock
October 26, 2011
An environmental group is protesting a water-rights transfer from a Socorro farm to the city of Santa Fe.
WildEarth Guardians is protesting an application to transfer 163 acre-feet of water owned by Vannetta Perry of Socorro and to stop irrigating 54 acres of land. Irrigation water rights are valuable to cities and housing developments that need the rights to use water within the Rio Grande basin.
When the rights are transferred, the irrigated farmlands are fallowed.
The city is continuing to purchase water rights to offset the impacts on the Rio Grande of past groundwater pumping at the municipality's Buckman well field near the river...continued.....
