Doing Business with OSE/ISC
ADMINISTRATIVE OBJECTIVES
The state engineer has identified the following administrative objectives:
A. The Tularosa Basin is recognized as a mined basin and is administered to allow use of groundwater to a specified amount of de-watering during a forty-year planning period. A "mined basin" is defined as a groundwater basin in which well withdrawals are in excess of natural recharge or induced recharge from streams.
B. Water level decline rates should only occur at an acceptable rate.
C. The application of water shall not be contrary to the public welfare of the state. Water quality suitable for domestic, municipal, agricultural and industrial purposes shall be main tained.
D. Existing surface water and groundwater rights shall not be impaired by new appropriations.
E. A groundwater appropriation shall only be granted to the extent that unappropriated water is available to the well from the aquifer at the proposed point of diversion and other statutory requirements are met.
F. A major portion of the freshwater saturated thickness shall be reserved for uses beyond the 40-year planning period which extends from 1982 through 2022. The planning period is assumed to start at the beginning of 1982, the year the basin was declared.
G. The application of water shall not be contrary to conservation of water within the state.
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