Sandia Pueblo addresses Corrales Siphon right-of-way issues with council

CORRALES — Sandia Pueblo Gov. Felix Chavez informed the Corrales Council Sept. 24 about the rights-of-way issues regarding the Corrales Siphon.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs recently checked the rights-of-way status for the Corrales Siphon, which is on shared land with the pueblo and the village and is used for their farmland.

“This issue is related to the village of Corrales, to the Pueblo Sandia and many farmers in the area. I’m speaking about the Corrales Siphon Project,” Chavez said.

He started by saying that Corrales and the pueblo have government-to-government relations and don’t necessarily have to speak to farmers in the area but that they do anyway out of respect for the village, mayor and city council. He acknowledged just how important water is to farmers.

In fall 2023, the siphon started having problems and that they in turn notified the BIA of the rights-of-way issue.

“The water started rolling back towards pueblo lands, and that’s how we found out about it,” he said.

He added that they recognized the immediate need for a solution on both sides of the river but had some issue communicating with BIA. The siphon area was studied by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, which requested permission to conduct geotechnical borings, then acknowledged that construction activities be placed on hold in order to address the issue.

“So we have allowed MRGCD to do the test drilling and boring on the public side of the river so that we could get a better understanding of what lies underneath the river because we don’t want to get into a situation where we start construction and we start running into areas where that might not be discovered at that time,” Chavez said. “So the the testing has been completed. Along the same lines, MRGCD has pretty much completed their planning and design work. They’re probably sitting at 90% at this point, so work has been progressing throughout this year.”

Through the course of these studies and the planning, they discovered there is no federally approved right-of-way for the MRGCD construction and operations.

According to Chavez, they are currently just waiting to hear from the BIA.

“The Pueblo Sandia takes the position that we have to follow the federal process. We still have that government-to-government relationship with the federal government,” he said.

He added that the pueblo has communicated with representatives and Senate members to get BIA to determine what must be done.

“Nobody’s been able to get answers out of them,” he said.

In a recent update from Corrales Sept. 6, water is limited for use to farmers.