A. Upon receipt of an application for a permit to construct and operate a project, the state engineer shall endorse on the application the date it was received and shall keep a record of the application. The state engineer shall conduct an initial review of the application within sixty days of receipt. If the state engineer determines in the initial review that the application is incomplete, the state engineer shall notify the applicant of the application's deficiencies. The application shall remain incomplete until the applicant provides all information required by the Ground Water Storage and Recovery Act. The state engineer may request additional information from the applicant and shall conduct an investigation of the project.

B. Within thirty days after determining that an application is complete, unless an extension is requested by the applicant, the state engineer shall proceed in accordance with the provisions of Section 1 [72-2-20 NMSA 1978] of this 2019 act regarding notice of the application. The notice shall contain:

(1) the legal description of the location of the proposed project;

(2) a brief description of the proposed project, including its capacity;

(3) the name of the applicant;

(4) the date of the last publication; and

(5) the requirements for an objection.

C. A person objecting that the granting of the application will impair the objector's water right, will be contrary to the conservation of water or will be detrimental to the public welfare and showing that the objector will be substantially and specifically affected by the granting of the application shall have standing to file objections or protests; provided, however, that the state or any of its branches, agencies, departments, boards, instrumentalities or institutions, and all political subdivisions of the state and their agencies, instrumentalities and institutions shall have standing to file objections or protests.

D. An objection shall be filed in writing, include the name and mailing address of the objector, identify the grounds for the objection and include the signature of the objector or the objector's legal representative. The state engineer shall schedule a hearing on the application and provide at least thirty days' notice of the hearing, by certified mail, to the applicant and any objector.

E. After the expiration of the time for filing objections, if no objections have been filed, the state engineer shall, if the state engineer finds that the application meets the requirements of the Ground Water Storage and Recovery Act, issue a permit to the applicant to construct the project to store and recover all or a part of the waters applied for, as conditioned by the state engineer.

F. A person or governmental entity aggrieved by any decision of the state engineer may appeal that decision to the district court pursuant to Section 72-7-1 NMSA 1978.

History: Laws 1999, ch. 285, § 5; 2019, ch. 88, § 4.

The 2019 amendment, effective July 1, 2019, removed a provision that required applicants to publish notice of a water application and directed the state engineer to proceed under the new notice provisions of Section 72-2-20 NMSA 1978, and removed a provision regarding certain disclosures to be contained in the notice; in Subsection B, deleted "the applicant shall publish a notice of the application in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which persons reside who could reasonably be expected to be affected by the project" and added "the state engineer shall proceed in accordance with the provisions of Section 1 of this 2019 act regarding notice of the application", and deleted "shall be given once a week for three consecutive weeks and"; and deleted Paragraph B(6), which related to certain disclosures contained in the notice for water application.