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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Adviser Exit Sets Water Plan Back

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
    Members of a committee working to complete an update of a regional water plan for the Estancia Valley discussed last week how to deal with the resignation of their technical adviser.
    Jim Corbin, who has functioned as technical adviser for the committee since the late 1990s, resigned earlier this year.
    "It's gonna set the timeline back" for completing the draft of the water plan, said Estancia Basin Water Planning Committee Chairman Ryan Schwebach.
    EBWPC first completed a water plan for the area in 1999 in response to declining water levels in the Valley Fill aquifer in the central region of the basin.
    That regional water plan was adopted by the state Interstate Stream Commission, which plans to integrate 16 water plans from regions around the state into the state water plan sometime "down the road," said Karin Stangl, communications director for the state engineer's office.
    Corbin took notes on members' comments from the meetings and used those to update the water plan and to begin discussions at the EBWPC meetings, but he has not forwarded any of those notes to the committee, Schwebach said.
    In a phone interview, Corbin said he expected to get those notes to members by Friday.
    EBWPC must also use $30,000 in state legislative funds before the end of June. Last year EBWPC was the only regional water authority to receive funds from the legislature. Those funds can be used to pay a technical adviser, Schwebach said.
    "If we don't spend it in this fiscal year, then we lose it. So we want to get it spent by June 1," Schwebach said.
    At the Feb. 21 EBWPC meeting, Daniel McGregor, who represents Bernalillo County on the committee, wrote down job duty suggestions for a replacement facilitator or technical adviser.
    Corbin was originally hired to function as a liaison between the Interstate Stream Commission and the committee, Schwebach said.
    Health problems, not anything associated with the committee, have forced him to resign, Corbin said.