Synopsis

Water is a precious fundamental resource that supports all life, and as access to potable supplies around the world shrinks, it has increasingly become a highly valuable commodity that can be exploited and capitalized.

If you drive out on U.S. Highway 60 heading west from Albuquerque, you'll quickly find yourself surrounded by a sprawling desert expanse, dry, dusty, and dying for a drink. Eventually, you'll end up in what may seem like some strange dream. Ancient Juniper and Pinon pines add a slight sweetness to the air. This is Catron County.

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The bucolic desolation can be shocking to your average city dweller, but people here delight in its starkness. There is a vigor to those who live here, and they represent the heart of rural Southwest America. Days here are usually serene, but that way of life is being threatened as the county's precious water supply is at risk.

As America enters a another period of economic turmoil, there is a looming crisis that affects occupants of the area. Catron County sits on top of a large water basin, a supply that sustains life in a notoriously arid climate. A company called Augustine Plains Ranch LLC is proposing to drill 37 wells and pump billions of gallons of water in the Rio Grande that would help New Mexico fulfill its interstate stream obligations to Texas and act as a new source of water for cities along the river.

To most people who live on the ranch land of Catron County, this is seen as a water grab. They fear the entire county will be sucked dry while urban areas along the river benefit, and Augustine Plains Ranch LLC enjoys huge profits. People have worked so hard to make this place their home, and as their communities are put at risk of being turned into a series of ghost towns, residents of Pie Town, neighboring Quemado, Magdalena, and Datil have unified in their opposition to these plans. They are locked in an ongoing legal battle to stop Augustine Plains Ranch LLC from pursuing their water development plans.

Is there a solution where all parties would mutually benefit, and the eco-system would be preserved?

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Style & Structure

This film sets out to capture the spirit of rural southwest America by revisiting Catron County in a similar way that the FSA documentary project set out to document the American homesteader of the 1940's. Russell Lee was sent to Pie Town in the early 1940's on assignment for the Farm Securities Administration under Roy Styker. Those images photographed by Lee were a revealing look at a struggling rural America on the brink of a second world war. As Paul Hendrickson of the Smithsonian writes, Lee's images "portrayed a little clot of high-mountain-desert New Mexico humanity in all its redemptive, communal, hard-won glory."

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This film will explore the lives of various individuals, but ultimately focus on what ties all these people together, in their effort to defend their hard earned claims, vital resources, and their futures. Not only is our nation engaged in another war and our economy weakened, but the livelihood of those who live in Catron County is being put on the line.

The desired outcome would be for urban America to see the growing water crisis in a new light. Because this is an issue that rarely draws attention from the mainstream media, the film will be able to document the issue in an exciting, ground-breaking way. Rather than focus on the lengthy legal process and hard statistics, the film will enter the lives of locals who are being affected, hitting on stories from the heart. The outcome of the water crisis is uncertain, but the filmmakers will follow the story closely as it is resolved.

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