A board member from the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the U.S. Forest Service and three conservation groups were among those filing more than 200 protests against a New York company's application to pump groundwater from the San Augustin Plains.

Monday was the deadline to file protests against the application by Augustin Plains Ranch, which is asking the state for permission to pump 54,000 acre-feet of water near Datil to the Rio Grande. The company proposes to drill 37 wells 2,000 feet deep and install 20-inch diameter casings to pump the water. The application gives a broad set of uses for the water, including the possibility of pumping it to the Rio Grande 50 miles away and selling it to the state.

The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District manages water distribution off the Rio Grande to 70,000 acres of land from Cochiti to the Bosque del Apache.

Bill Turner, a board member of the conservancy district and an independent water broker, filed a protest Monday with the state engineer against the application. Turner said he is acting in his capacity as a board member, and his protest was filed on conservancy district letterhead. But the board failed to hold its last meeting Dec. 10 and did not vote as a whole for the protest.

Charles "Chuck" DuMars, an attorney for the district, whose Albuquerque law office also filed the water drilling application on behalf of the New York company, said Turner had no right to act on behalf of the whole board. "He doesn't have the right to represent the district," DuMars said. "He should have filed it as an individual."

But Turner said the conservancy district claimed in a state Supreme Court case that it was a trustee of all the irrigation waters for its members. "That imposed a trust responsibility on the board jointly and (individually)," Turner said. "Every board member had imposed on him a fiduciary duty, not to be taken lightly. That means any board member can file a protest on behalf of the board."

Turner's protest claims the amount of water the company proposes pumping could be detrimental to senior water-rights holders in the conservancy district.

The Gila Conservation Coalition, the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity and the Upper Gila Watershed Alliance also protested the application, claiming it is detrimental to the public welfare and contrary to the conservation of water in the state.

DuMars said his role in the application is "pretty narrow," and Augustin Plains Ranch has its own team of public relations people, hydrologists and economists working on the project.

He said the company has to prove pumping the water won't harm the Rio Grande, the Gila River or well owners. Even then, it will have to file a separate application to use the water anywhere except for the company's ranch, he said. "At this point, it is simply a blanket application to explore how much water is there, and the only place of use is on the ranch," DuMars said.

DuMars said the conservancy district has never opposed a water-drilling application, "not with Rio Rancho, not with Albuquerque. And this one is 50 miles away."

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.