The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer approves each of these transfers, most of which are relatively small: five acre-feet here, 24 acre-feet there. Since every drop of water flowing through the Rio Grande has been allocated to someone, the only way for cities or developers to find "new" water is to buy and transfer it. Water moves around New Mexico in clouds, streams, pipelines, and also on paper. Situations like Perry's show how tenuous a grasp farmers have on the future-and how natural it is for people to assume the Rio Grande will always provide for their needs. "I'm selling my water so I can keep the farm and continue farming it."
The conservancy district delivers water to irrigators in a 150-mile stretch of the river. "If I sell my water rights, I can pay off my farm and continue farming by leasing water from the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District," she says. That's when she decided to sell her water rights-164 acre-feet, or more than 5.3 million gallons-from the Rio Grande to the City of Santa Fe. We chose it for our children and because we love farming."īut when Perry's husband, Gary, died in 2010 of a rare brain disease, she couldn't keep up with the loan for the land where they raised their children and where she continues to live while working as the Socorro's interim superintendent. "But for us, for my husband and I, we chose that as a way of life. "It's almost impossible to be out of the poverty level just by farming if you're a small farming operation," says Perry. Both worked other jobs to keep the farm running.
Her husband bought the land in 1973, and five years later, the couple started growing crops like alfalfa, winter wheat and corn for grain. Eight miles south of Socorro, Vannetta Perry owns a 54-acre farm.
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