By JOHN ORTEGA, QUESTA MAYOR

When I was elected mayor of Questa in March 2022, the Village was in arrears by 1,908 acre-feet of water rights to the Office of the State Engineer. The value of these water rights was in the millions of dollars.

My staff and I immediately began working with the staff at the State Engineer’s Office to remedy the issue. I was informed that since the Village dug its first well in the 1970s, we never had enough water rights—we were always in arrears.

We began developing a return flow credit program. This means the water treated at our wastewater treatment plant and released back into the environment is metered, and we receive credit for it. On average, this amounts to about 70 acre-feet in water rights per year.

At the time, the Village was overdiverting between 100 and 120 acre-feet of water per year. We only had 101 acre-feet of purchased water rights.

Fortunately, the State Engineer was able to calculate and apply return flow credits retroactively, dating back to 1976. This wiped out the 1,908 acre-feet in arrears—saving the Village millions of dollars in water rights debt.

We had been in conversations with Chevron about the possibility of a water rights donation to the Village of Questa. However, their water rights were tied up in litigation with the State Engineer’s Office. At Chevron’s request, we engaged in helping resolve the dispute. In 2024, a settlement was reached.

Following the agreement, Chevron began the process of donating 120 acre-feet of water rights to the Village of Questa. I am personally grateful to Chevron for this donation.

With these additional water rights and our return flow credit program, the Village will no longer overdivert and will now have the ability to support future growth of our water system.

Thank you to Chevron, the Office of the State Engineer, and our Village staff for completing this much-needed work, saving the Village of Questa millions of dollars, and setting us up for a sustainable future.