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These
are perilous times for those who depend on the Middle Rio Grande
Conservancy District for water with which to grow a livelihood, as detailed yesterday.
But while that group represents a critical segment of the agency's
constituency, it is tiny when compared to another: The urban masses who
will probably never farm a day in their lives but really enjoy
recreating on or just looking at the infrastructure the district created
with their property tax payments. That infrastructure often takes the
form of ditches, and many of those are famously gorgeous, offering a
shaded green tunnel that sometimes passes by overhanging fruit trees and
friendly photogenic livestock.
But there are others, including the riverside drain running along the
east side of Tingley Drive from Central into the South Valley, that give
off a decidedly more barren industrial feel. What greenery exists is
often invasive and unplanned and is thus subject to occasional dramatic
mowing (DAN, 1/27/21).
Walkers and joggers may find themselves navigating around tumbleweeds,
goatheads, and trees of heaven. With scant signage available, newbies
could be forgiven for thinking they were trespassing by walking on their
own public lands.
None of this has escaped the attention of MRGCD board candidates Karen
Dunning and Colin Baugh, but both point out some fundamental obstacles
to quickly changing the situation.
The district's insurance providers, for one thing, won't let it get into
the recreation business, Dunning said, and it doesn't have the
financial heft to self-insure. What formal recreational opportunities
exist on district land - like the bosque trail - are there only thanks
to partnerships with other entities like the city or county, who assume
responsibility for what they build.
All that means the process of addressing the more aesthetically
challenged sections of the ditch network will be long and incremental.
But not impossible: Dunning points to projects like the ongoing effort
to build a multi-use trail along the Alameda Drain (it will terminate
near Rio Grande and I-40 - DAN, 1/23/24) and the project to turn part of the Harwood Lateral in the North Valley into a linear park as prime examples of progress.
Baugh would also like to see more done to beautify the ditches and said
he's heard much the same from constituents. He thinks solutions could be
relatively simple and small-scale.
"It cannot look that way," he said. "Why aren't we planting fruit trees?"
Yet given the district's limitations on this front, Baugh is interested
in getting community groups like neighborhood associations
to essentially adopt sections of ditches. MRGCD may not have much
capacity to improve the look and feel of any given ditchbank, he said,
but it should be willing to help anybody who wants to pitch in.
"There needs to be a better public engagement process," he said, adding
that the district is in the process of creating an advisory panel to
work on the issue. In the meantime, he said anyone interested in
pursuing a project should get in touch with him.
As for basic signage, he said the district is pulled from all sides on
the matter but predicted that, eventually, "signs will come." He
especially likes the idea of getting kids involved in making the signs.
Staying relevant
In a year when out-of-control fires elsewhere brought home the reality
that the bosque is - in addition to being a beloved verdant oasis
- fully capable of hurling dangerous flaming embers at vulnerable nearby
houses, the MRGCD's portfolio is more relevant than ever. But as an
organization, it generally flies under the radar.
Part of that can likely be chalked up to the district's highly
specialized mission. Ask an average person on the street, and they
probably won't be able to say much about what the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District or the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority get up to all day either.
But the MRGCD's board elections are also set up such that they pack less
of an outreach and engagement punch than they might otherwise. The
polls are run separately from the electoral operations that decide who
becomes a city councilor, member of Congress, or governor. The calendar
is different, and often the physical poll sites are too. The process of obtaining an absentee ballot
cannot be completed online, as it can be with elections administered by
the Bernalillo County Clerk. There is no same-day registration.
The rules governing who is allowed to vote stand out even more: Only property owners are eligible, and those who have recently bought into the district may have to send in proof of their purchase 90 days in advance.
Voting, in other words, requires learning an entirely different system
that is, in some key respects, substantially less convenient than the
one governing all the other elections. Most people just don't bother.
"We have the lowest turnout of any elections - probably anywhere," Dunning said. "It's pretty bad."
In recent years, there has been some effort made to broaden voter
eligibility to the point where the process could be folded into standard
elections, but Baugh and Dunning said the idea ran into trouble when it
came to synthesizing tribal electoral protocols into the mix. For the
moment at least, it looks as though renters are out of luck.
"The effort to get more people eligible to vote is a really sticky
situation," said Dunning, who nevertheless supports the move. "It's
really complex."
Baugh, who also used the word "sticky" when describing the conundrum,
was less direct about his support for renter suffrage, saying that he
would first like to make it possible for businesses that own property to
vote. But for the general sake of transparency, he added, "why wouldn't
we embrace a larger voter base?"
Dunning, for one, isn't terribly optimistic that reform will be in the air anytime soon.
"For it to succeed, I think it has to be a grassroots movement," she said. "I don't know where that will come from."
The road ahead
Whether it grows its constituency or not, the district is set to
confront a future with no shortage of challenges and complications, from
water availability to fire dangers to the state of ditchbanks. There's
also the not-so-small issue of how to manage the next generation of bosque vegetation
once the iconic cottonwoods, already at the end of their lifespan and
without much of a younger generation to take their place, die off.
But assuming the rural-urban alliance endures for another 100 years,
Dunning reckons, it will do so by facing down those hard problems in a
way that transcends the MRGCD itself. The district may own the bosque
and the ditches, but the city, the state, the county, tribal
governments, and the feds all have a direct stake in the system.
"It's never cut-and-dried or easy," she said. "There are these complex
relationships between all these different entities, and they all need to
work together."
Meanwhile, there's no shortage of things to do. Striking an optimistic
note, Baugh said he hopes to find many others who are game to dive in
with him.
The district is "in one of the best places it's been in a long time," he said. "We're saying, 'Come, be involved.'" |
