Acequia and community ditch associations are political subdivisions of this state. As political subdivisions of the state, acequia and community ditch associations are authorized to receive loans from the interstate stream commission from the New Mexico irrigation works construction fund. History: 1953 Comp., § 75-14-25.1, enacted by Laws 1965, ch. 145, § 1; 2001, ch. 221, § 2. The 2001 amendment, effective June 15, 2001, added the second sentence. Community ditch association's system for distributing ditch rights was not incompatible with 1962 court decree. — Where the governing body of the acequia mesa del medio (AMM) issued a new irrigation schedule, reducing plaintiffs' irrigation time from the acequia, and where plaintiffs brought an action against AMM seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, disputing how AMM distributes water to the holders of ditch rights and how AMM assigns a particular time period for taking water from the acequia to each member of the association and specifically arguing that the system by which AMM determines the date and amount of time that each holder of a ditch right may take water from the acequia during each irrigation cycle (the derecho system) is incompatible with a 1962 court decree that recognized the authority of each community ditch and acequia association to distribute water to the holders of water rights in accordance with local customs and traditions, and where the district court dismissed landowner's claims for declaratory and injunctive relief relating to the derecho system, concluding that AMM had the authority to distribute water to its members based on custom, the district court did not err in dismissing plaintiffs' claims, because the 1962 court decree recognized the authority of each community ditch and acequia association to distribute water to the holders of water rights in accordance with local customs and traditions, and in this case, AMM adopted the irrigation schedule for distributing water on the acequia based on its own local traditions and customs; plaintiffs failed to establish that the adjudication of irrigation water rights in the 1962 court decree supersedes or conflicts with AMM's use of the derecho system to distribute water from the acequia to the landowners involved in this case. Lujan v. Acequia Mesa Del Medio , 2024-NMCA-043, cert. denied. Community ditches may condemn land. — Since community ditches are political subdivisions of the state, under power of eminent domain they may condemn land for the construction of ditches. 1969 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 69-96. Law reviews. — For article, "Water Rights Problems in the Upper Rio Grande Watershed and Adjoining Areas," see 11 Nat. Resources J. 48 (1971). Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — 28 C.J.S. Drains §§ 6, 79.
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