Gov’s signature sidelines Gila diversion group Written by Geoffrey Plant on April 6, 2021 Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed House Bill 200 into law Monday. Titled “Water Trust Board Projects and N.M. Unit Fund,” the law, which was passed by the Legislature during its regular session, assigns the advisory role over how $80 million reserved for water projects in southwest New Mexico is spent to the N.M. Water Trust Board, while simultaneously prohibiting the money from being spent on a Gila River diversion. The New Mexico Entity of the Central Arizona Project, formed in 2015 to design, build and operate a series of diversions with which it intended to capture up 14,000 acre-feet of surface water annually under the terms of the 2004 federal Arizona Water Settlements Act, had tried in fits and starts to recast itself in the advisory role since the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission voted to defund its diversion project last summer.