A bill prohibiting New Mexico municipalities from taking irrigation water rights through condemnation is among dozens awaiting Gov. Bill Richardson's decision by noon Friday.

Farmers, ranchers, sportsmen and environmental groups that support the bill worry it won't be signed by the legislative deadline, effectively vetoing it. They say the bill is critical to protecting surface-water rights and preventing a water grab by growing cities.

"This is very much a people's bill, not an agency bill, not an industry bill," said Janet Jarratt, a Los Lunas dairy farmer who spent hours negotiating the final version of the bill. "It had the broadest support I've ever seen."

Currently, New Mexico law allows cities and towns to condemn water rights inside and outside municipal boundaries all the way to the state's borders. House Bill 40 prohibits municipalities from using eminent domain to take over water rights belonging to acequias, conservancy districts, irrigation districts and other political subdivisions. It is supported by the Sierra Club, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, Conservation Voters of New Mexico, the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association and the New Mexico Acequia Association, among other groups. The House and the Senate unanimously approved an amended version of the bill.

"It doesn't get any better than a unanimous bill," said Jarratt, who also sits on the board of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, a primary Rio Grande water-rights holder. "To have it pocket-vetoed is worrisome."

Still, the bill takes away an important tool cities have to access much-needed water in the future, said Bill Fulginiti, executive director of the New Mexico Municipal League, which represents 103 municipalities and opposed the bill initially. "We don't know what the future holds," Fulginiti said. "But we know agriculture has 85 percent of the water. Cities have 7 percent of the water. That water is going to have to be transferred in the future from agriculture uses to municipal uses."

While cities can purchase agriculture water rights currently, the prices keep steadily climbing. "That marketplace may become unreasonable," Fulginiti said.

While the Municipal League still wasn't happy with the final bill, he said, it stopped actively opposing it. He said he had not urged Richardson later to veto the bill.

Gilbert Gallegos, the governor's deputy chief of staff, and Caitlin Kelleher, the governor's media coordinator, said they didn't know what action the governor intended to take on the bill.

The bill's supporters sent out a flurry of e-mails Tuesday night asking people to call the governor and urge him to sign the bill.

"We're supporting the bill because there are values that are core to what New Mexico is, and some of those are our natural resources, our rivers, our farmland," said Alan Hamilton, conservation program director for the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. "We feel those need to be on equal footing with cities."

Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association, said, "We were never certain of the governor's support. We thought once the Municipal League stopped fighting it, he would lean toward signing it."

The state engineer requires cities to buy irrigation water rights to offset the impacts of well pumping or river diversions on the Rio Grande. As cities find fewer willing sellers, they might turn to condemnation to get the water rights, Garcia said.

Fulginiti said municipalities have had the right to condemn water for a century and have done so only three times, proving cities don't abuse the power.

But both Roswell and Las Vegas have broached the possibility of using eminent domain in the last several years to resolve water needs.

Hoyt Pattison, a Clovis farmer, lobbyist for New Mexico Dairy Producers and former longtime state representative, knows a little about water-rights condemnation. The village of Taos Ski Valley condemned his family's water rights in the 1990s.

In some ways they didn't come out too badly in the deal, he said. But "we're not in near as safe a deal as if we still owned the water rights," Pattison said.

He said the bill is needed to protect agriculture water rights from municipal water speculation. "The necessity for condemning water rights is purely financial. (Cities) can condemn them now, put them in a 40-year development plan and use them later," Pattison said. "Anyone knows in 20 years those water rights would cost them more to buy (than now), and in 30 years even more."

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.