Digging ditches isn’t how UNM students usually expect to spend their summers. But this low tech task is part of an ISTEC, Ibero-American Science and Technology Education Consortium program to remap and reestablish the old acequia system that Spanish and Tlaxcalteca settlers once used to irrigate Albuquerque’s South Valley with water from the Rio Grande.
The project started in 2008 when Jorge Garcia, ISTEC vice president for program development began working with James Maestas, founder and president of the South Valley Regional Association of Acequias. Maestas was looking for a way to bring back traditional small farms in the South Valley.
That was not as simple as it sounded. Through the years many families in the South Valley have sold their water rights or have simply stopped irrigating. To the state of New Mexico, a farmer who simply stops irrigating eventually loses his right to water from the river. That meant Garcia and Maestas had to begin reestablishing the rights of the paracientes, land owning water users, and to them the first step on that journey was to remap the old South Valley acequias.
After working meetings between officials from ISTEC and the SVRAA, the organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding that led them to develop a geospatial project aimed at mapping the old laterals so SVRAA could begin putting water back into them.
Garcia and Maestas realized they needed to do the project correctly, so working with Judith Van der Elst and Heather Richards from the UNM Department of Anthropology and Amy Ballard with the Geographic Information Technology Program at Central New Mexico Community College, they designed a college course to teach members of the community how to map the old acequias and put the information into an electronic database that anyone could use via the internet.
They quickly found partners.
“ISTEC and SVRAA worked with the Office of Environmental Health and the Center for Raza Studies at the UNM School of Architecture and Planning to help set up the mapping system,” says Garcia. “We borrowed equipment from the Health Department and worked with Derick Betsie and Fernando Ortega, members of the Partners for Environmental Justice, and Carlos Bustos from the New Mexico Rural Water Users Association to begin the mapping process.” The group worked on mapping the old acequias throughout the summer of 2008, and this summer moved on to the low-tech part of the process - digging out acequias that haven’t been used for 50 years to connect them back to the main acequia system.
They haven’t completed the ditch yet. Garcia says they are raising money to put in a culvert to allow water to flow beneath a road, and they are also looking into other sites that need help with reopening their acequias. But the process for reopening one of the acequias is well underway, and the next phase is to raise consciousness about water use for small farms as a way to reinforce the farming culture of the South Valley to grow local and organic vegetables and fruits for the local markets.
This is already in progress. Ten families are raising blueberries and produce, and a program with the American Friends Service Committee and e-merging communities, a local organization, is helping train local families on soil preparation and how to grow small gardens. This training also includes teaching families how to grow crops over the winter using cold frames.
The project has also attracted students from the South Valley Academy, CNM, the UNM Community and Regional Planning department, and the Community Service and Learning Corp. These organizations and their students have been instrumental in helping to bridge the gap between high technology mapping and farming.
Garcia says that the final goal of the project is to develop a virtual system that will allow SVRAA to help water users to claim their water rights, while the data collected can be managed using a combination of GIS/GPS technology integrated into a community virtual management system. This process will allow ISTEC to do knowledge, information and technology transfer so community members have the technical expertise to maintain and use the database of all water systems and water users in the South Valley.
This is an example of the kind of projects that ISTEC, under its Information Technologies for Social Development program, is creating to bridge the digital divide and develop long lasting community-university relations and partnerships. The Consortium fosters scientific, engineering and technology education, joint international research and development among its members. ISTEC was organized in 1990 as a non-profit organization comprised of educational, research, industrial, and government agencies throughout the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula.
ISTEC’s XVII General Assembly will take place at UNM on Oct. 27-28. This event will bring practitioners, academics, and representatives from government and multilateral agencies from around the world. For more information visit: ISTEC Events.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at September 1, 2009 03:36 PM