The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month announced a plan to support acequias through partnerships with associations of conservation districts in New Mexico and Colorado. The agency is giving $15 million toward the effort.
"It's very welcome news that this funding is coming into New Mexico," said Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association.
Groups of people who run acequias, known as parciantes, will be able to apply to the state conservation district for the money. Garcia said often people want money to build small dams.
"These [are] diversion structures that are placed on rivers to divert water off the river into the acequia," she said.
While the hundreds of acequias in the state have been part of life in the southwest for centuries, she said she has recently seen more people seeking to repair or maintain them and caring about the community benefits of jointly managing water supply.
Garcia said she thinks a middle-aged and older generation is, "Putting a strong emphasis on making them operational, making them efficient, so that the next generation can pick up where we left off."
The new funding is part of the USDA's Water-Saving Commodities Program designed to support agriculture while reducing water loss in the West.
A number of other Western irrigation entities also get an influx of federal money from the program. In New Mexico, that includes the decades-old Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and the Elephant Butte Irrigation District.
