the property neighbors top of the world farm, which has been at the center of controversy surrounding water rights in the area for years. according to carmona, who also goes by farmer dan, the business was started in the 1950s by a group of insurance companies who wanted to lose money for a tax write-off. top of the world farm received a permit to divert millions of gallons of water, said carmona, which severely disrupted the upper rio grande watershed while inducing distrust in local communities with their water rights. 

last summer, i met with carmona at his cerro vista farms to learn about his relationship with water and how he copes with water scarcity in one of the driest places in north america. during our conversation, carmona describes how the history of water rights and land use in northern new mexico has greatly influenced his ability to access water.

this multimedia presentation combines our conversation in podcast form, with a visual presentation of images captured at his cerro vista farms and the surrounding areas. please explore both below!

across all states, water issues are becoming more critical by the day. due to climate change and watershed management, new mexico has been experiencing water scarcity for longer and drier periods, making it more vulnerable to uncontrolled wildfires and salinization. limited precipitation at the headwaters of the rio grande river, is exacerbating water issues downstate. you can help mitigate water scarcity issues through watershed conservation and stream restoration initiatives, and by learning about water justice in your community.

this story was featured in our series, slipping through our fingers: the future of water.

full transcript below:

eva sideris: last summer, i met with daniel carmona, who is also known as farmer dan, to learn about his relationship with water and how he copes with water scarcity in one of the driest places in north america. farmer dan is the owner of cerro vista farm and has 42 years of experience farming in the high-altitude short-growing season of the sangre de cristo mountains near taos, nm, in cerro, arroyo hondo, las colonias, and lama. he has been growing and selling organic food in taos since 1977, in the roles of farmer, restaurant owner, and grocery store manager. during our conversation, farmer dan describes how the history of water rights and land use in this corner of new mexico has greatly influenced his ability to access water. generally speaking, many states west of the 100th meridian, including new mexico, function off of prior appropriation water rights meaning that one’s access to water for beneficial purposes is based on the first-in-time, first-in-right principle of the prior appropriation doctrine. this method allows the oldest, and therefore most senior appropriations of water to have priority over other younger, or more junior, water rights. however, when the water supply is limited, the most junior rights may not be fulfilled, so they must go without water. prior appropriation water rights are a controversial and complex topic due to the long history of proclaimed water ownership in the united states. they are especially critical in areas experiencing extreme water scarcity that is exacerbated by climate change. as water becomes more scarce, the ownership and seniority of one’s water rights will control outcomes of success and have even determined life or death for water rights owners. in this podcast, farmer dan shares his personal historical account of water, politics, underground rivers, and water witches!

farmer daniel: so i got this place in 1995, and five years later. i got a permit to pump water. it took five years, and i wasn’t going to stay here if i didn’t get that permit. i was going to just sell it or sell part of it and look for a place where i could pump water. when i got my first farm and got my first well, you only had to talk to the state engineer to get a permit. but in 2002, the ditch associations in new mexico were given the legal powers to control the water in their jurisdictions. so now, if you want to drill well to supplement surface waters, your ditch association has to approve it before you even approach the state engineer’s office.

eva sideris: acequias or community ditch associations are recognized under new mexico law as political subdivisions of the state. acequias are engineered canals that carry surface waters like snow runoff or river water to distant fields. many of them have been in existence since the spanish colonization period of the 17th and 18th centuries. the customary law of the acequia is older than and at variance with the doctrine of prior appropriation. although the doctrine of prior appropriation is based on the principle of “first in time, first in right,” the acequia norms incorporate not just priority but principles of equity and fairness because water is treated as a community resource that irrigators have a shared right to use, manage, and protect. while prior doctrines allow for water to be sold away from the basin of origin, the acequia system prohibits the transference of water from the watershed. acequias in new mexico have lengthy historical roots in pueblo and hispano communities and greatly contribute to local culture which is why they are carefully projected in places like cerro.

farmer daniel: the ditch association would have never approved me drilling a well, but i got my well permit in the year 2000, and the ditch association got its legal power to control the water in 2002. so i just slipped in by chance before the ditch association could say no, and i know they would say no, and i know the reason. and that’s because where the water is 4500ft deep, at the base of ute mountain, there’s a place called top of the world farm that was started intentionally by a group of insurance companies who wanted to lose money. they needed to lose some money somewhere, through a tax write-off. there was water there and they got a permit to pump. they pumped 10,000 gallons a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and grew crops that they couldn’t even sell because there was no railroad and there wasn’t any paved highway to take crops from there to get them to a market – it was intentionally designed to fail. they told me, a lot of people who have passed on told me, who used to live here, that they could hear the pumps running in cerro that were at the base of that mountain, 24 hours a day. well, you know what that did? it dried up everybody’s well, everybody’s hand dug well, and cerro went dry! so that’s why the cerro ditch association members, who were kids then remember what happened and they don’t want anybody to drill a well because they’re afraid their wells are going to go dry.

eva sideris: starting in the early 1950s, abundant vegetables, grains, and alfalfa were grown in the semiarid climate of northern new mexico – thanks to more than a billion gallons of water pumped from just below an extinct volcano called ute mountain. although the farm was able to grow produce at an unsurmountable scale, the operation came with an extreme tradeoff that severely depleted the water table. whatever groundwater was pumped to the fields was diverted from the rio grande, so people, plants, and animals downstream were less likely to access water. according to local news, santa fe county and four indigenous pueblos are in the process to move 1,752 acre-feet of water rights from the farm to serve faucets in the area north of santa fe that would supply drinking water to thousands of people downstream while also respecting traditional uses and tribal claims to water. however, this is a highly contested issue, that continues to impact the greater new mexico community and no decisions have been made yet.

farmer daniel: wow! so i got a permit, and i had one year to drill a well. i didn’t have any money before i had the well drilled, so i got a water witch out here, or a dowser. dowsers find moving water, not standing water. so she found underground rivers using brass welding rods. some people use willow branches, and you have to be gifted in that way. i’m sure i could do it, but i’ve never tried.

eva sideris: water witches — also known as dowsers, have been around for at least 500 years, and records show their presence all over the world. in order to locate groundwater accurately, hydrologic, geologic, and geophysical knowledge is usually needed to study an area; however, dowers are able to provide many of the same services as hydrologists by substituting science with forked sticks and their intuitions.

farmer daniel: she found me three spots with rivers, and we marked those spots for my domestic well, which is why my house is in this spot. and she found the best spot for my irrigation well, which is right on the road where my driveway meets the road. so i found out later, probably 15 years after she was here, dowsing the well. i found out that, in fact, the biggest underground river in this whole aquifer is right where my well is. makes a big difference because the water table has dropped 18ft since i’ve been here. if your well is not deep enough, you’ll have to drill another well and go deeper. so i feel pretty secure with the water supply here. this is the only spot in cerro that has water. and it’s enough acres, 26 or 27 acres, that if we keep growing food on it, it can be continued to be a valuable asset to the community. we can’t sell the water because it’s in the jurisdiction of a ditch association, i wouldn’t want to anyway. i really want this farm, even when i’m dead and gone, to still be pumping out of that river and producing food for the community. that’s really important to me. i’ve grown most of my own food for most of my life since i started farming 43 years ago. i’ve lived here for 28 years. once i started growing produce here, all the old folks who grew up having to grow their own food became my best customers selling from my farm because they appreciated what i was doing, because they had to do it to survive. now they can just come here and buy it. so i feel totally rooted here, and i feel appreciated by the community.

eva sideris: after his lifelong journey to secure water, farmer dan has finally found it. he and his son are planning on expanding the cerro vista farm.

farmer daniel: when i realized maybe i could actually farm with my son, it was totally exciting to me. plus, he’s a totally cool person!

eva sideris: across all states, water issues are becoming more critical by the day. due to climate change and watershed management, new mexico has been experiencing water scarcity for longer and drier periods, making it more vulnerable to uncontrolled wildfires and salinization. limited precipitation at the headwaters of the rio grande river, is exacerbating water issues downstate. you can help mitigate water scarcity issues through watershed conservation and stream restoration initiatives, and by learning about water justice in your community

mcneal, arizona—for monarch butterflies, it’s all about the milkweed. without it, the iconic butterflies have no place to lay eggs and no place for their larva to feed – especially on their stupendous annual migrations. 

monarch populations have declined steeply in the past decades for a variety of reasons, including loss of habitat. to reverse the trend, the western association of fish and wildlife agencies in january instituted the western monarch butterfly conservation plan, a 50-year effort to help the monarchs bounce back. 

some of the first steps are being taken in arizona.

at whitewater draw wildlife area near mcneal one day last month, 25 volunteers spent five hours planting milkweed to create waypoints for monarchs migrating to southern california and west-central mexico from the northern u.s. and canada – a trip that can stretch 3,000 miles each way.

the wildlife area – which is the winter home to more than 20,000 sandhill cranes – is a wetland nestled amid the arid plains of southern arizona, about 100 miles southeast of tucson. it has damp soil in places – ideal for several species of milkweed, a stalky, green wildflower of the genus asclepias.

monarchs leave the northern u.s. and canada in early fall to spend the winter on the california coast and in the sierra madre occidental in mexico, the u.s. department of agriculture says. each trip takes four generations of butterflies to complete.

the planting project was set up by arizona game & fish department as its part in the overall western monarch butterfly conservation plan, which is meant to help reverse the 74% population decline of the monarch in arizona, california, idaho, nevada, oregon, utah and washington.

the population of monarch butterflies overwintering in california last january was the lowest on record, with only 28,429 butterflies – an 85.2% decline from the previous year and a 99.4% decline from the number observed in the state in the 1980s.

bill van pelt, the grassland coordinator for the western association of fish and wildlife agencies, oversees interstate programs and projects focused on grassland biomes. 

“what these states did is came together, to come up with ideas to try to boost populations and give them areas for nectarine or feeding, and then waystations or layover areas and to take their next step on their migrations,” van pelt said.

other regions where the monarch populations are more permanent, such as california, focused on building out roosting areas – rest stops for the migrating monarchs, which only travel in daylight. for arizona, it means planting several varieties of milkweed through a collective effort among game & fish, the southwest monarch study and the gila watershed partnership.

whitewater draw was the first of several arizona locations where milkweed will be planted, but that wasn’t originally planned. a dry monsoon season for arizona delayed the planting at every other location, but whitewater draw is a special case, said cheri boucher, a project evaluation program specialist for game & fish.

“we had originally planned to do a number of these during monsoon season and, you know, august, september, october, but this past monsoon season was one of the driest in history,” boucher said. “so we have postponed most of the events that we had planned until december, january, february.”

whitewater draw already has a maintained water source for the sandhill cranes, which spend their time in shallow, muddy waters, socializing and avoiding predators. not needing to rely on rainfall to ensure the milkweed survives makes whitewater draw special, but the process of planting will be the same for all the six other locations. 

the morning starts with a quick orientation from steve plath, the nursery manager for gila watershed partnership, about milkweed and what it takes to get the plants to grow. gail morris, a coordinator and conservation specialist for southwest monarch study, also explains how milkweed fits into the monarch life cycle.

the process itself involves taking immature milkweeds and planting them in moist soil on the edge of a water source. the five different varieties of milkweed have adapted to different amounts of water, meaning they get planted in a ring type formation along the banks. the plants survive best in moist dirt, so digging the holes is a muddy operation.

“we’re all having fun, you know, digging in the mud and planting milkweed,” boucher said.

since the southwest monarch study began actively monitoring the monarch population in 2008, morris has seen a heavy decline, even considering normal population fluctuation. climate change affects the butterflies, he said, but the impact is really felt through the decline of milkweed and other native plants.

“climate change isn’t directly … like, the sun isn’t killing the butterflies,” morris said, “but it’s killing the plants that they eat, right? it (climate change) can affect the monarchs if the temperatures get too high, it can affect it in two ways.”

rising temperatures also can slow the rate of caterpillars’ growth, affecting the monarchs’ entire migration schedule, morris said, adding that higher winter temperatures could destroy monarch habitats used today.

for the volunteers, the idea of helping make a better future for the butterflies was more than enough to get them to come out. ariana tamayo remembers seeing monarchs in mexico as a child, an experience she wants future generations to have.

“they hang out in trees and it’s almost like a honeycomb of them,” tamayo said. “it’s pretty amazing.”

video by melanie porter/cronkite news

for boucher, the volunteer response has far exceeded expectations.

“i couldn’t have anticipated how many people were excited about this program,” she said. “when the press release went out, all of the volunteer slots were filled within a matter of hours, and that’s over 250, you know, volunteers that have signed up to help out various wildlife areas around the state.”

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related story

population of migrating monarchs dwindling, but experts say it’s not all doom and gloom

arizona game & fish hopes all the milkweed survives from these plantings, but as the first year of this program, it’s about learning as well. boucher said the department will be back out next year to learn and adapt.

“with any habitat rescue duration effort, you do expect a certain amount of mortality,” she said, “but we’re hoping to learn from the plants that we’ve put in today.” 

officials plan to record how many of each milkweed species survived in each location, which will help them adjust to ensure a higher survival rate in the future, boucher said.

weather permitting, game & fish will plant milkweed in cornville, springerville and safford in january and february. other planned sites are near buckeye, black canyon city and bullhead city.

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal.

negotiate with the government of mexico. reach an accommodation regarding the digging of an underground access tunnel from nogales, arizona to the mar de cortés. that distance is approximately 125 miles. the mar de cortés is the body of water that lies between the baja peninsula and the mainland of mexico.

in addition, build a grand-scale seawater desalination plant near nogales, arizona. the plant would be solar powered with conventional power back-up to allow the plant to be in continuous operation.

the us southwest has been water-starved throughout history. hundreds of thousands of square miles of desert and marginal land in the region lie barren and unproductive due to a lack of water.

with seawater access and a seawater desal facility arizona could serve as a freshwater hub for the entire us southwest. pipelines, trucks and or trains could deliver the water to cities, farms and households in the region.