ABOUT THE NEW MEXICO ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER AND BRUCE FREDERICK

Bruce Frederick, Staff Attorney
New Mexico Environmental Law Center
1405 Luisa Street, Suite 5
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
505-989-9022, ext. 26

The Law Center has represented individuals and acequias is protesting the transfer of water rights in three cases.  Two involved the proposed transfer of water rights from a member of an acequia in Socorro to Intel.  In both cases the transfers did not occur.  The third case involved a proposed transfer from the "Top of the World" in Taos to Santa Fe County, south of the Otowi Gage.  Our clients opposed the transfer only to the extent it would set a precedent by allowing a transfer of water rights from the north to south of the gage.  A transfer did ultimately occur, but the water rights were not transferred south of the gage.  (I did not work on these cases, because they occurred prior to my employment with the Law Center in 2007.)

I have been involved in water issues in New Mexico for about 20 years.  I received a master’s degree in groundwater hydrology from Tech in 1988 and later graduated from UNM Law School in 1993.  My law school thesis was "Salvaged Water--the Failed Critical Assumption Underlying the Pecos River Compact."  I joined the firm of Montgomery and Andrews ... as a law clerk in 1992 and then as an associate from 1993 through 1997.   While at the firm I worked almost exclusively on natural resource issues, including water rights cases, on behalf of individuals, cities and corporations.  Most of this worked involved research, water rights transfers, and adjudications.

I worked for the New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands from 1997 through 2003, representing the Commissioner in water rights transfers, adjudications, and water policy.

From 2003 to 2007 I worked for the State Engineer's Office and the Interstate Stream Commission.  I was the Northern New Mexico Lead Attorney in charge of all northern NM adjudications, including Taos, San Juan, San Jose, Aamodt, and Santa Fe adjudications.  I focused primarily on Taos and San Juan and was the first attorney to actually move forward on the adjudication of non-Indian water rights in many years.  I also prepared briefs and argued in two appeals to the New Mexico Supreme Court on behalf of the State Engineer.  Both appeals I worked on were successful.

As an attorney, I will work for my clients to achieve their goals (assuming they're lawful goals, of course).  In the San Augustin case, the goal is to oppose and ultimately defeat the application, and I believe this goal is common to all our clients regardless of their political beliefs.

/s/ Bruce Frederick