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Thursday, January 13, 2005

Water Official Linked To Seller

By John T. Huddy
Journal Staff Writer
    Santa Fe water division director Galen Buller, a former water rights attorney, previously represented the owner of an Estancia cattle company who is now negotiating to sell Santa Fe upward of 2 billion gallons of water a year.
    On Tuesday, Buller defended his work with CR Land & Cattle Co., whose owner, John Cyle Sharp, is president of a group of Torrance County farmers offering to export Estancia Basin water to Santa Fe through a 65-mile pipeline.
    Buller said his past relationship with Sharp has nothing to do with the city's current negotiations with Sierra Waterworks, a limited liability company composed of farmers with Estancia Basin water rights. Sharp is president of Sierra Waterworks.
    Buller said the bulk of negotiations during the past year on the proposed water deal was done by his staff.
    "I did have a relationship with (Sharp) years ago, but his negotiations with the city I handed over to another team to do the evaluation work," Buller said.
    Buller was with the Montgomery and Andrews law firm in Santa Fe before taking a job as chief water executive for city government in March 2003.
    From mid-2001 through late 2002, Buller was the attorney for Sharp's CR Land & Cattle, helping sort out water rights issues with the State Engineer's Office, including water right permit applications and transfers filed by CR Land & Cattle between 2001 and 2002, records show.
    During that time, the records indicate, Sharp joined his water rights from CR Land & Cattle with rights owned by five other Estancia Basin farmers, forming Sierra Waterworks LLC.
    Sharp echoed Buller's comments about the current negotiations, maintaining that the pair's past business dealings had no bearing on Sharp and Sierra Waterworks' dealings with the city.
    "We talked to other people (as potential buyers of the Estancia Basin water), too," Sharp said.
    Sierra Waterworks was not given any preference among other water rights holders interested in selling rights to the city, Buller said. At least one other group has applied to the State Engineer's Office to transfer water from the Estancia Basin to Santa Fe, but without any agreement with the city.