Legal Department

Carlsbad Irrigation District (CID) Partial Final Decree Definition of Terms

Adjudication:  The legal process required by the New Mexico water code to determine all rights to the use of the surface and underground waters of a particular stream system.  In accord with NMSA 1978, § 72-4-19 (1907), the adjudication court issues a decree declaring for each water right “the priority, amount, purpose, periods and place of use, and as to water used for irrigation, . . . the specific tracts of land to which it shall be appurtenant, together with such other conditions as may be necessary to define the right and its priority.”

CID:  Carlsbad Irrigation District.

CIR or Consumptive Irrigation Requirement:  The quantity of water, expressed in acre feet per acre per year, exclusive of effective precipitation, that is consumptively used by crops or evaporated from the soil surface during one calendar year.

Defendant:  Person or entity joined as a party to the Membership Phase adjudication proceedings and named in individual Subfile Orders.  This person or entity may or may not be the current owner of the water right in question.

FDR or Farm Delivery Requirement:  The quantity of water, expressed in acre feet per acre per year, exclusive of effective precipitation, which is delivered to the farm headgate or diverted from a well to satisfy the consumptive irrigation requirement for one calendar year.

Hydrographic Survey:  Data compiled by the State Engineer that is necessary for the determination of all rights to the use of the waters of a stream system. 

Irrigation Water Requirement:  Collectively, the CIR, FDR, and PDR are the ''irrigation water requirements.”  The irrigation water requirements for all surface water rights and supplemental rights in the Membership Phase were established by the Project Phase Decree (link to Appendix E82).

Inter Se:  The final stage of the water-right adjudication process in New Mexico in which water-right owners are provided with the opportunity to object to each other’s water right.

Membership Phase:  The portion of the adjudication process in which all elements of the water rights of individual water-right owners were determined with regard to the State.

No Right: Tract of land determined to be without water rights.

Partial Final Decree: (link to CID PROPOSED PARTIAL FINAL DECREE COURT DOCUMENTS, CID Partial Final Judgment  -  Membership Phase)  A final decree is a judgment which sets to rest all disputes between the parties to a lawsuit.  The final decree in this case is “partial” because the CID Section is one of several sections of the State v. Lewis adjudication of the Pecos River Stream System.  A final decree will not be entered until every section of the Lewis adjudication of the Pecos River Stream System has been adjudicated and every Pecos water-right owner is provided with an opportunity to participate in a final stream-wide inter se process.

PDR or Project Diversion Requirement:  Also called the Off Farm Diversion Requirement.  The quantity of water, expressed in acre feet per acre per year, exclusive of effective precipitation, which is diverted from an off-farm surface water or groundwater source to satisfy the farm delivery requirement (FDR) at the farm headgate for one calendar year.

Project Phase Decree:  The Partial Final Decree, entered by the Court on December 10, 2004, including the Settlement Agreement attached to and deemed incorporated into the decree.

Project Water:  Public surface waters diverted from the Pecos River Stream System by the CID and the United States pursuant to the Project Phase Decree.

Subfile:  The method used to organize water rights in a hydrographic survey.

Supplemental Right:  The right to groundwater as a supplemental supply to surface water rights.