Middle Rio Grande Regional Water Plan

2.1 The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission’s Role in Public Involvement
in the Regional Water Plan Update Process
The NMISC participated in the public involvement process through a team of contractors and
NMISC staff that assisted the regions in conducting public outreach. The NMISC’s role in this
process consisted of certain key elements:
• Setting up and facilitating meetings to carry out the regional water plan update process.
• Working with local representatives to encourage broad public involvement and
participation in the planning process.
• Working to re-establish steering committees in regions that no longer had active steering
committees.
• Supporting the steering committees once they were established.
• Facilitating input from the stakeholders and steering committees in the form of compiling
comments to the technical sections drafted by the State and developing draft lists of
projects, programs, and policies (PPPs) based on meeting input, with an emphasis on
projects that could be implemented.
• Finalizing Section 8, Implementation of Strategies to Meet Future Water Demand, by
writing a narrative that describes the key collaborative strategies based on steering
committee direction.
This approach represents a change in the State’s role from the initial round of regional water
planning, beginning in the1990s through 2008, when the original regional water plans were
developed. During that phase of planning, the NMISC granted regions funding to form their
own regional steering committees and hire consultants to write the regional water plans, but
NMISC staff were not directly involved in the process. Over time and due to lack of resources,
many of the regional steering committees established for the purpose of developing a region’s
water plan disbanded. Funding for regional planning decreased significantly, and regions were
not meeting to keep their plans current.
In accordance with the updated Handbook (NMISC, 2013), the NMISC re-established the
regional planning effort in 2014 by working with existing local and regional stakeholders and
organizations, such as regional councils of government, water providers, water user
organizations, and elected officials. The NMISC initiated the process by hosting and facilitating
meetings in all 16 regions between February and August of 2014. During these first months, and
through its team of consultants working with contacts in the regions, the NMISC prepared
“master stakeholder” lists, comprised of water providers and managers, local government
representatives, and members of the public with a general interest in water, and assisted in
Middle Rio Grande Regional Water Plan 2017 5