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The city of Roswell is considering how to untangle legal and financial issues that involve Roswell Air Center water rights deeded to the city when the U.S. military gave the airfield and associated properties to Roswell.
Mayor Dennis Kintigh, who also serves as chairman of the city of Roswell Airport Advisory Commission, said he started asking city staff several years ago to address the water rights issue that began after the U.S. military closed the Walker Air Force Base in 1967, giving the city the airfield property and about 2,500 acre-feet of water. Later the city integrated the Air Center water system with the city’s system.
“To me the good news is that we are looking at this hard and this is something that has been ignored for five decades,” Kintigh said.
When the city drilled additional wells at the airfield, the matter did result in a legal case and a 1982 New Mexico Supreme Court decision, but that case did not fully resolve all the questions, as posed by Kintigh and others.
Should the Air Center continue to receive in perpetuity all the money from its water rights, which city officials said have totaled as high as $625,000 a year?
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Or, as Kintigh contends, has the city of Roswell more than paid for the value of water rights during the past years through its investments in the Air Center and its maintenance and upgrades to water system lines at Air Center property, so that all water revenues can go directly to the city’s water enterprise fund?
“The premise I maintain is that water and sewer, those two enterprise funds, have purchased the water rights that came with Walker over the last five decades because the revenue from those water customers went to the airport enterprise fund rather than to the enterprise funds that provided the service, that did all the work,” Kintigh said. “The classic example, most recent, is the water towers, a $7 million project that was not funded by the Air Center enterprise fund but was funded by the water enterprise fund.”
The two water storage towers will serve primarily the Air Center and the homeowners, businesses and government-related entities near the Air Center on the former air base property.
Another example he gave was an 8-inch water line to the Sceye hangar that was paid for by the water enterprise fund, even though the water line was an improvement to the Air Center.
Lawyer and commission member Amy Jo Coll is a proponent of a different approach, saying she researched the issue when it first came to the commission two years ago.
She said that she disagrees that the city can claim for certain that it has paid for Air Center water rights. Determining the value of the water rights, she said, is beyond the scope or authority of city officials. She also said that the Federal Aviation Administration should have its perspective considered.
In the short term, she said, it is better to leave the complicated legal issues over water rights out of the matter and instead just adjust how the city accounts for water revenues and expenses.
“I talked with airport staff. They do feel that procedurally the accounting change would be beneficial,” she said.
After the discussion, the commission voted 4-1 to recommend that the Roswell City Council adopt a proposed resolution concerning Air Center water rights, with Coll casting the dissenting vote.
“I don’t have trouble procedurally changing the accounting,” she said. “I don’t like the resolution.”
City Manager Joe Neeb said that the resolution will enable the city to funnel the revenues from Air Center water to its water enterprise fund. That fund and the sewer enterprise fund would continue to pay for work on city water and sewer infrastructure.
Then, according to Neeb, the city would ensure that the Air Center received monies from the city budget if needed to balance its budget.
“It is not the city’s job to cover any shortfall of the Air Center,” said Neeb. “It is the city’s job to have a balanced budget.”
While a balanced budget could be achieved by reducing Air Center expenditures if needed, Neeb said he thinks that it is important to ensure that the Air Center receives enough funding that it can continue to operate well.
The draft of the resolution indicates that the water enterprise fund would agree to pay $220 per acre-foot for the Air Center water, with a current value of about $548,669 a year.
Neeb predicted that it would take many years to resolve the water rights issue if the city decides to settle the matter definitely with federal agencies. Kintigh, Coll and Air Center Director Scott Stark all said that they think that legal resolution should occur at some point.
The resolution is expected to be considered by the Roswell City Council Legal Committee before it is voted on by the entire city council. If passed, Neeb said, the resolution will be provided to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Lisa Dunlap can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 351, or at reporter02@rdrnews.com.
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October 24, 2021 at 11:00AM
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City dives into Air Center water rights - Roswell Daily Record
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