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A MEMORIAL
URGING THE CULTURAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT TO INCLUDE THE ACEQUIA
DE CHAMITA IN THE NEW MEXICO STATE REGISTER OF CULTURAL
PROPERTIES AND NOMINATE THE ACEQUIA DE CHAMITA FOR PLACEMENT
ON THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES.
WHEREAS, the colonist Don Juan de Onate called upon his
men and fifteen Ohkay Owingeh villagers to dig the first
irrigation system of Iberian-Arabic design in New Mexico on
August 11, 1598; and
WHEREAS, the Acequia de Chamita, as the irrigation
system has become known, is still in common use by the people
of Ohkay Owingeh and the community of Chamita; and
WHEREAS, the map dated 1602 and created by Enrico
Martinez depicting "Onate's kingdom" indicates the settlement
of Sama at San Gabriel del Yungue, now known as Chamita; and
WHEREAS, in "Monarquin Indiana", the seventeenth century
Franciscan scholar Fray Juan de Torquemada states in 1602 the
importance of the new form of irrigated agriculture and
describes the settlement of San Gabriel del Yunque, located
between the Rio Chama and the Rio Grande, as having irrigated
fields of wheat, barley and corn and within the settlement
the remainder of the food for the community is cultivated in
gardens, all served by the Acequia de Chamita; and
WHEREAS, the gravity-flow earthen canal system for
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irrigation that was constructed along the Rio Grande and Rio
Chama began the spread of civil and social "water democracy"
throughout the southwestern part of what became the United
States and the acequias served as the lifeblood for community
development for thousands of civilian settlers or pobladores;
and
WHEREAS, in New Mexico alone, the system of acequias has
grown to exceed one thousand acequias within the state, all
carrying the imprint of the Acequia de Chamita; and
WHEREAS, a map of the town of Chamita from the 1877
field notes of United States surveyors Sawyer and McElroy
show the Chamita land grant indicating the Acequia de Chamita
starting from the Rio Chama and emptying into the Rio Chama
above its confluence with the Rio Grande; and
WHEREAS, very few significant changes since it was first
constructed are seen today along the four-mile course of the
Acequia de Chamita, with the exception of the replacement of
the earthen diversion dam by a concrete diversion,
installation of relatively modern headgates and a change of
the point of egress to a place on the Rio Grande rather than
the Rio Chama; and
WHEREAS, site records of a survey completed by the state
highway and transportation department in 1994 and another
survey completed by the army corps of engineers in 1995, both
note the historic importance of the Acequia de Chamita and
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recommend the acequia for inclusion on the national register
of historic places; and
WHEREAS, the legal description of the location of the
Acequia de Chamita is in the bylaws of the acequia, stating
that the acequia "provides irrigation water from the Rio
Chama for the communities of Chamita and San Juan Pueblo
(once again called Ohkay Owingeh); and
WHEREAS, the four-hundred-nine-year history of the
Acequia de Chamita places it as the oldest Euro-Arabic water
management system still in use in the United States; and
WHEREAS, 2007 has been declared by Governor Bill
Richardson to be the "year of water" and that will bring
greater focus to protecting and insuring the survival of New
Mexico's acequias;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE
STATE OF NEW MEXICO that recognition be given to the social,
cultural, historic and ethno-hydraulic engineering importance
of and the long-lived contribution to New Mexico of the
Acequia de Chamita; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the senate urge the cultural
affairs department to place the Acequia de Chamita on the New
Mexico register of cultural properties and further consider
nominating the Acequia de Chamita for the national register
of historic places; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
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transmitted to Governor Bill Richardson, Governor Earl
Salazar of Ohkay Owingeh, the secretary of cultural affairs,
the acequia commission and the state and national register
coordinator.