Local county sovereignty
- Paul Spencer, W.I.L.L. for Prosperity
- Dec 26, 2023
- 4 min read
The definition of regionalization is the federal government sharing personal and community assets and resources.
The new governance of water should not be regionalization. Instead county leaders (33 counties strong in New Mexico ) can exercise individual county sovereignty to help community public water systems provide safe, clean, affordable water.
I have already sent reading material on this subject via email; please open links below.
Links below are the partnership (regionalization) handbooks and everything in these books which lead to partnerships between community public water systems in the counties and states of the United States of America.
The Council of Governments located in Gallup, NM, are pushing hard for Regionalization in conjunction with a nonprofit organization by the name of RCAC as well as the New Mexico Environmental Department. They are saying that there are better opportunities for funding through regionalization and many other government agencies and organizations are echoing this initiative throughout the nation under the Joe Biden Administration.
This Administration is looking for champions. Who qualifies as a champion? Is a champion considered only those who are willing to be Yes men?
If the EPA has money set aside to develop newly created quasi-governments where one said group called the Middle Rio Grande Water Advocacy group purposed 18 newly formed regions. These 18 new quasi-governments made up of community public water systems would appoint an individual to be a member of newly formed quasi-government to represent their Community Public Water Systems’ (CPWS) interests.
There have been discussions where it was said if a community government entity chooses not to participate in the newly formed government, the policies and regulations agreed upon within that region by those who do participate will be developed and applied with or without the consent and/or participation of those who have dissenting opinions or fail to participate.
Why cannot that same funding be set aside and made available to set up a county level government body or a department of government that provides needed services; these would represent the will of the people, reflected by the people, through the process of elected government to help those in their county. Ideally, a functioning, governing body or department would provide technical, financial and managerial services and be a support system with information on how to proceed with assistance to resolve the problem or situation. The county governing body or department would not have power to issue out-of-compliance violations, penalties or fines as explained in the Bluewater Sanitation District (BWSD) proposal. Out of this proposal I have enumerated a few key services as listed below.
Provide managerial assistance to help the (volunteer) community public water entity apply for funding.
Provide the entity with professional accounting services and training much like USDA programs developed for CPWS operator apprenticeships. Since 2014, New Mexico has mandated that every government entity have a certified public accountant but this mandate has not been met or enforced.
Services would help entities meet state and federal regulations, for instance providing a full-time operator. These services would temporarily provide water and sewer operators for the disadvantaged and or struggling CPWS that will in effect operate water and sewer systems locally. Without a full time operator, they are unable to qualify for federal USDA apprenticeship programs. This would better position community public water systems to hire operators locally, unlike regionalization with a “shared” operator who could be up to an hour away–in good weather. This is especially concerning in emergency situations where water leaks may present great amounts of costly water loss in each community.
Local operators have more concern for the environment they live in thereby the community is better served. Economic justice is fulfilled with my neighbor being employed rather than not.
In order to be eligible to participate in apprenticeship programs through EPA, which now receive funding from the environmental and economic justice Bipartisan infrastructure Law, this would encourage local community participation. A nonprofit organization could utilize up to 5% to administer funding to help and assist the New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED) and New Mexico Finance Authority (NMFA). These entities administer funds for the clean water state revolving funds of NMED and safe drinking water revolving funds of NMFA as stated on page 11 of The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as indicated in the link below.
If county government is not able to provide services needed by CPWS by providing county sewer and water operator or county community public water systems accounting training services and project coordinator, why could not a nonprofit organization take the lead using the same funding structure provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Justice 40 Initiative. The Justice 40 Initiative claims its efforts charts “a new and better course. One that puts environmental and economic justice at the center of all we do”.
Free enterprise should be the fundamental practice of the Federal Government policies to attract critical thinking, intermediate thought, problem solving and social justice vs regionalization. Regionalization being a lesser conscious system to address local concerns and issues that address the local social welfare services, this is defined as mobilization and distribution of goods for a collective goal that public water systems provide safe, clean, affordable water.
Why do CPWS need to consider the possibility of giving up any rights to representation via elected officials in regionalization efforts of the federal EPA. This establishes a new quasi-government who potentially assumes assets and rights to land and water ownership because of the continuing failures of government agencies to meet their goals for decades.
The Biden administration states ”Through the steps we’re taking today, we’re committing to continuing to listen to and learn from impacted communities and those who have been on the front lines as part of our whole-of-government approach to delivering President Biden’s promise to make environmental justice a national priority.”
For the health, peace and safety of our communities, will they hear our voices?
A few questions remain unanswered. Why are so many small community public water systems (CPWS) being found out of debt capacity as defined by primacy (ability to pay back the loan portion of funding). This issue is resulting in a continued out–of-compliance government regulated debt capacity scorecard. This results in perpetually remaining out-of-compliance in maintaining state and federal regulations. This is due to unaffordable policies and regulations of law that cannot be enforced to serve the purpose of the law as currently written or as originally intended; else evidence presented would not contain so many shared issues concerning small community public water systems due to aging infrastructure.
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