In New Mexico, they say “whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting.”So, what do you get when you cross a jumping mouse, a rancher and an environmentalist?
No, it’s not the opening line of a bar joke, it’s the foundation for a story about New Mexicans coming together to protect water – our most precious resource.
Manuel Lucero and his family have ranched in the Jemez area for generations – part of a culture that predates the establishment of the Cañon de San Diego Land Grant in 1798.
He manages the operation with his father Mariano, and it’s heavily dependent on water.
Turns out, they aren’t the only ones.
In 2014, the meadow jumping mouse – a rare subspecies found primarily near streams and wetlands in parts of New Mexico – was designated as an endangered species.
As a result, a pasture on the Lucero ranch was closed, and access to valuable grazing land for their operation was barred to protect the small mammal. Cattle could not reach the creekside – their main source of drinking water.
As you can expect, this set off a heated conflict between ranchers and environmental advocates who sought the jumping mouse’s protection.
The Luceros feared that fencing off the river would have a damaging ripple effect, dramatically affecting their culture, economy, and the local community.
For years a stalemate ensued, frustrating Toner Mitchell, the New Mexico Water and Habitat Program Director for Trout Unlimited.
Like the Luceros, Mitchell was born and raised in New Mexico. For decades Mitchell had seen the same fight over and over again: ranchers frustrated by federal regulations impeding their livelihood while trout anglers being frustrated by cattle impeding their own recreational aims.
Not wanting to get stuck in the same tired battle, Mitchell decided to approach the Luceros and ask, “how can we work together?”
Turns out, they had much more in common than Mitchell ever imagined.
“I got to learn a lot about what their lives are like, what it takes to ranch well and in a way that doesn’t hurt the land,” he shared. “People assign values and attitude to ranchers that they don’t know for sure. More ranchers than not have very progressive views on stewardship.”
And so began a conversation that resulted in an award-winning partnership.
Through Trout Unlimited, Mitchell worked hand-in-hand with the Luceros to install a drinking system for the family’s cattle herd, allowing the cattle to graze in the meadowlands high above and away from the creek.
“Those meadows hadn’t been used as far as we could tell,” Toner shares. “There was this beautiful, tall grass but going down in quality, because grass needs to be eaten every now and then to stay vibrant.”
By installing the new system, the cattle could still access a critical source of water while improving the health of the wetland area along the Rio Cebolla.
For Manuel, the partnership wasn’t just about protecting his cattle, it was about protecting the wetland areas too.
He describes the deep interconnection of Rio Cebolla’s headwaters and side channels and its impact on not only his ranching outfit but also the acequias he manages as president of the Cañon Community Acequia – a system his father and grandfather managed as mayordomos for more than 30 years.
“We have to protect the headwaters up top, because we depend on them down here in the lower country as well,” he shared. “Water is key to us. Water is life.”
Mitchell says the collaboration with Trout Unlimited helped both sides learn more about each other’s worlds and proves land and water stewardship can be something that unites – not divides – New Mexicans.
“When you put environmental groups across the table from ranchers, they have a lot of the same goals,” he says. “There is an opportunity to save these local communities. If you do the work, you can protect the rivers.”
And they have. The partnership was so successful the San Diego and Cebolla/San Antonio Grazing Associations and Trout Unlimited won the Southwest Region’s Partnership Award, what Trout Unlimited called “a testament to collaboration and multiple use, not to mention the value of standing in each other’s boots.”
For Manuel, he says the partnership shows “we’re trending in the right direction” and hopes it can be a model for better relations between ranchers and environmental advocates. So maybe in the end, both whiskey and water can be for drinking after all.
Partnerships like this show that communities are willing to do the hard work of coming together around water issues. We need our state leaders to do the same, because water issues can’t wait any longer.