Acequias: Water Democracy and Ecological Resilience
Moderator's Note: We are posting the testimony (February 18) of Devon G. Peña before the Colorado General Assembly, House Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Livestock. The Governor signed an amended version of HB 09-1233 in April. See blog entries for April 7 and April 1o.
heirloom maiz de concho at Rancho Dos Acequias, San Acacio, Colorado.
COMMENTS PREPARED FOR THE AGRICULTURE, LIVESTOCK, & NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE, 67TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY, STATE OF COLORADO REGARDING THE PROPOSED BILL ON “RECOGNITION OF ACEQUIAS” (HB 1233)
Prepared by Dr. Devon G. Peña
Denver, Colorado. February 18, 2009
I. Introduction
Madam Chair, thank you for allowing me to testify; it is a real privilege. My name is Dr. Devon G. Peña and I am a Professor of Anthropology, American Ethnic Studies, and Environmental Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. I am also a landowner, farmer, and irrigator in the San Luis Valley. Indeed, I am one of the fortunate souls to have land with water rights on Colorado’s oldest irrigation ditch, La Acequia de la Gente de San Luis, a.k.a., the San Luis Peoples’ Ditch, established in 1852. I am here to testify in support of the passage of the legislation that is before you on the “Recognition of Acequias.” My testimony will draw from my qualifications as an expert research scholar and as an acequia farmer. Over the past 27 years, I have organized and directed interdisciplinary research teams of natural and social scientists to carry out comprehensive studies of the history, culture, economy, and ecology of the acequia farming system.
II. Cultural and Historical Significance of Acequias
Research scholars have long recognized the acequia as a significant part of the cultural heritage of humanity. Indeed, the acequia, because of its thousand-year history as a cultural and civic institution, is being considered for designation as a world heritage resource by the United Nations at the request of the government of Spain and the famous water commissions of Andalucía.
Centennial Farm, the Corpus A. Gallegos Ranches (est. 1852).
Congress long ago granted this sort of recognition under the terms of the 1986 Water Resources Development Act that declared acequias to be valuable cultural, historical, and engineering resources important to the development of agriculture in the American Southwest. The State of New Mexico, of course, has long recognized the legal status of acequias as bonafide sub-county institutions of local government with wide-ranging authority relevant to the protection and conservation of water resources for agricultural uses.
III. Acequias Renowned as “Water Democracies”
The acequia is more than just an irrigation ditch. Indeed, the term refers as much to the form of local democratic self-governance based on the association of acequia parciantes (landowners with irrigation use rights on a community ditch). Acequias have been celebrated by natural and social scientists as “water democracies” (see Rivera 1999, Peña 1998, 2003, 2005) in recognition of their traditional “one farmer-one vote” form of decision-making within the community ditch. Indeed, John Wesley Powell, in an 1897 Survey article, celebrated the acequia systems by characterizing the association of irrigators as a “watershed commonwealth.”
This legislation will recognize and value the fact that acequias, and their unique system of customary democratic law, is as true to place as any other legal principles governing water use and conservation in Colorado’s Upper Rio Grande bioregion. This legislation will allow acequias to revitalize the traditions of local self-government and thus preserve the acequia “way of life.”
Indeed, as my colleague Dr. Jose Rivera of the University of New Mexico has observed, the acequia is not just an irrigation ditch nor is it just a form of agrarian democracy, it is a “culture” in the sense of a whole way of life. This cultural diversity is an important source of the resilience that makes this one of our most important cultural and historic resources in the State of Colorado.
IV. Ecosystem Services of the Acequia System
One of the areas of research that recently has occupied the attention of scientific scholars is the study of the ecosystem services provided by the acequia irrigation system and its tradition of gravity-driven flood irrigation. Indeed, in looking toward the conditions of a Post-Peak Oil world, the gravity-driven traction of the acequia system is being reevaluated as an important contribution to agriculture based on sustainable and renewable use of energy.
More recent studies by hydrologists, ecologists, conservation and wildlife biologists, edaphologists (soil scientists), and environmental economists are verifying research I directed in the 1990s under grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation on acequia farming families in Northern New Mexico and Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Our study found that acequias provide a wide range of ecosystem services including the conservation of agrobiodiversity, provision of wildlife habitat and movement corridors, soil conservation, and the preservation of water quality.
Fernald et al. (2007) report that acequias are important in providing water quality services that maintain native vegetation associations. Shallow groundwater flows caused by ditch seepage and flood‐irrigation methods dilute contaminants present in pre‐existing shallow groundwater and protect the deeper groundwater by transporting contaminants away from the deeper aquifer (Fernald, Baker, and Guldan 2007). In this manner, acequia systems provide vital hydrological, agroecosystem, and riparian functions and thus support biodiversity at the species, population, and landscape ecology levels. Few modern-day agroecosystems in the United States follow this habitat-friendly pattern at the landscape ecology level. Fernald et al (2008) further report that recharging of in-stream flows by means of sub-irrigated flows means that acequias do not necessarily damage riparian lifezone conditions downstream of ditch diversions.
V. Economic Base Services of the Acequia System
In addition to these ecosystem services, the acequias also provide a vital set of economic base services that are crucial not just for the agricultural sector but for the regional tourism economy that is associated with the beautiful cultural landscapes created over generations by the acequias.
Rivera (1999) and other researchers have demonstrated that much of the tourism industry in New Mexico owes its existence to the verdant cultural landscapes created by acequia farming practices. Indeed, with the growth of New Mexico’s wine industry, most observers note that this too would not be possible without the existence of acequias and their rich, deep soil-horizons on properly irrigated bottomlands. This is also the case in our own San Luis Valley where tourists are attracted to our area largely because of the presence of the historical and cultural landscapes that were created by acequias.
One recent study (Peña 2003) estimates, conservatively, that a seven-county area in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado with large numbers of acequia farms receives a net economic benefit of between $280-300 million a year in economic base services from the acequias. The estimates, as I said, are conservative and do not include the direct sales of heirloom organically-certified crops like the famous roasted white corn known as chicos del horno, prepared in our iconic adobe ovens.
The San Luis area is known for its religious tourism sites like the fabled Stations of the Cross Shrine and the Capilla de Todos Los Santos. Increasingly, we are attracting another brand of cultural tourist, the agri-tourist. Indeed, San Luis is home to various 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations that are promoting agri-tourism through the preservation and prosperity of our historic acequia farms. Since at least the early 1980s, the San Luis area has hosted students from high schools, community colleges, and universities from all over Colorado and New Mexico who come to study, work, and live among our acequia farming families. This law will greatly strengthen the ability for acequia associations to organize initiatives that protect and maintain an attractive environment that draws these growing numbers of cultural and educational tourists.
VI. Concluding Remarks
For too many decades, the farming and ranching and the environmentalist communities were at loggerheads. The world is changing and environmentalists are learning to recognize and value the vital role played by farmers in Colorado in preserving open space, wildlife habitat, and thus biodiversity. I am proud to have been one of the first social scientists to make the argument that farming in nature’s image produces vital ecological and economic services to our cherished bioregion. I am blessed to be an acequia farmer entrusted along with my neighbors with the preservation of the land, water, and local place-based culture.
References Cited
Fernald, A. T. T. Baker, and S. J. Gulden 2007. Hydrologic, Riparian, and Agroecosystem Functions of Traditional Acequia Irrigation Systems. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 30:2:147-71.
Hicks, G. A. and D. G. Peña 2003. Community Acequias in Colorado’s San Luis Valley: A Customary Commons in the Domain of Prior Appropriation. University of Colorado Law Review 74: 387-486.
Peña, D. G. 1998. Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Peña, D. G. 2003. The Watershed Commonwealth of the Upper Rio Grande. In James K. Boyce and Barry Shelly, eds., Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Peña, D. G. 2005. Mexican Americans and the Environment: Tierra y Vida. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Rivera, J. 1999. Acequia Culture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
