An Inconvenient Adjudication Impacting Water Rights on the Rio Grande

Initial Article Published in the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Sierran in the March-April 2010 Issue. This write up includes the initial article plus subsequent updates. For further information contact Sigmund Silber ssilber1@juno.com
Editor's note:This is a consolidation of ongoing updates. Click on update link to go directly to that section

Introduction
March 24, 2010 Update
July 1, 2010 Update
February 3, 2011 Update
April 2011 Update (Rio Grande Sierran)

Introduction

What if the actions leading to the creation of Elephant Butte Dam, the Rio Grande Project, and the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) will soon be overturned in court? What might the impact of such a court decision be and might this change be inconvenient for certain parties?

We have to go back in time to 1888 when Anson Mills, an Army Brigadier General and Engineer, proposed the construction of a storage dam known as the International Dam about 3 miles north of El Paso, a location that would not have easily accommodated a large dam. General Mills is thought to have served special interests in Texas. Fortunately or unfortunately the Panic of 1893 prevented the funding of this proposed dam. But in that same year, a New Mexico company, the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company (RGD&IC) was formed with plans to build several dams including a large storage dam further north in New Mexico. Indeed in 1895, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior under the provisions of the U.S. Irrigation Act of 1891 approved a right of way over public land for the RGD&IC to construct a large dam in essentially the exact location where the current Elephant Butte Dam exists today.

The question then is how did the dam at Elephant Butte become a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) project rather than the project of a private company, the RGD&IC?
At this point it is important to make the point that when one is attempting to go back in time, it is very likely that different people will have different perceptions of what took place. This article represents some independent research but is based mainly on many hours spent interviewing Scott Boyd, the great-grandson of the ultimate owner of the RGD&IC Dr. Nathan Boyd. This article is not intended to be a complete analysis of all the historical documents that are available that pertain to this issue. Without attempting to try this case in the Sierran, there seems to have been the following factors which led to the demise of RGD&IC and its replacement with a Federal dam project called the Rio Grande Project:

More details on the legal issues involved in this case are available in Table 1. More background information on RGD&IC and the Rio Grande Project is available in Table 2.

So where does that leave things? First let us make it clear that the author of this article is not in any way attempting to argue for or against any of the principals in this legal case. The intent is to explain how the implications of the various court proceedings underway might impact the current situation of water right holders and users along the Rio Grande and especially within EBID, and potentially impact the foundations of water law along the Rio Grande including potentially the Rio Grande Project and possibly even the Rio Grande Compact.

Our understanding of the situation is that a Federal “Quiet Title” action almost ten years ago in the Federal District Court in Albuquerque and later confirmed in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that there must be an adjudication of the Federal Claims to Elephant Butte. In the 1952 McCarran Act, the Federal Government waived its sovereign immunity in cases involving the general adjudication of water rights in State Courts. The State of New Mexico 3rd District Court, based in Las Cruces, with Judge Jerald A. Valentine presiding was previously given total authority over water adjudications in the Lower Rio Grande by the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. Thus this matter has come before Judge Valentine’s Court and after a number of years of delays, Judge Valentine has set a deadline of April 8, 2010 for the New Mexico State Engineer and the Federal Department of Justice to report to his Court their understanding of what water rights and other project rights are owned by the Federal Government.

One can only speculate as to what might happen on April 8. The following should be considered just that: speculation as to what might happen not a prediction. Those requested to file a report might file the required report and or an offer of judgment and the stated facts and law in that report or offer of judgment would then be a topic for consideration by the Court. Or those ordered to file such a report or offer of judgment might again claim an inability to comply with the instructions of the Court. What then? Will the U.S. Department of Justice and the New Mexico State Engineer be found in contempt of court? Can a State Court even find the Federal Government in contempt of court? The most likely outcome after perhaps additional delays might be an order to expand the current adjudication to include the water rights that existed prior to the Rio Grande Project being initiated. Or, alternatively, one or more of the litigants might offer a settlement to the Boyd Estate in exchange for not pursuing the legal action.

If the case proceeds to an order of adjudication of the pre-1906 water rights, could this order to adjudicate apply only to water users south of Elephant Butte Dam or could it apply to the entire length of the Rio Grande in New Mexico? Most likely, the initial adjudication would apply only to water rights and users south of the Elephant Butte Dam and the waters held by the dam.

One then has to ask the question: what would the results of such an adjudication be and how might it be carried out? There seems to be somewhat of a circular situation here. The Federal Government has been asked to declare their water rights and other project rights. But can you determine what rights the Federal Government has before you determine the rights of the Boyd Estate and those farmers who had turned over their water rights to the RGD&IC? And until you determine what water rights exist below Elephant Butte and at Elephant Butte itself, can you determine how those decisions might impact water rights upstream of Elephant Butte?

One likely outcome of such an adjudication is that those who had water rights prior to 1906 would have the date that they first put their water to beneficial use recognized as their priority date. Right now all of the pre-1906 water rights were assigned a 1906 priority date when those farmers were forced to join the Rio Grande Project.

The recognition of earlier Rio Grande priority dates would of course be beneficial to those who have an earlier priority date recognized. And it should be clear that since these events took place more than 100 years ago, we are talking about the descendants of the farmers who had water rights back when the RGD&IC was essentially dissolved and when the Rio Grande Project was developed and farmers were forced to participate to receive water.
In addition to the descendents of farmers who threw their lot in with Dr. Nathan Boyd (and thus lost water rights) or later became associated with what is now known as EBID, there are the claims of the estate of Dr. Nathan Boyd. It is difficult to get Scott Boyd to lay out exactly what compensation he is looking for if the adjudication is ordered or in lieu of the adjudication being ordered a settlement agreement offered. Apparently the RGD&IC had water rights in the vicinity of its Leasburg weir diversion dam. This dam was built by RGD&IC and in its current form is still in operation and serves as the major diversion point of the Rio Grande Project. The water rights below the Leasburg Diversion Dam likely to be claimed by the Boyd Estate came about as a result of contracts between farmers (who wanted better water supply) and RGD&IC for the construction of the Leasburg and Elephant Butte Dams and also improvements to ditches. At that time, providing water infrastructure itself was considered a contribution to establishing beneficial use and thus created a category of water rights.

Scott Boyd also claims “water storage” rights that were given to RGD&IC. There might be as many as 230,000 acre feet of water storage rights involved and perhaps one might interpret one acre foot of storage right as being two acre feet of water rights since there are two flood storage stages in a typical year. Thus it is possible that the Boyd Estate could claim up to a half million acre feet of Rio Grande water. This of course is the most explosive aspect to this adjudication and related matters.

A Court award of a large quantity of senior water rights to the Boyd Family Estate and other farmers combined with other Rio Grande Project obligations might very well exceed the normal release from Elephant Butte. That of course perhaps explains the reluctance of the New Mexico State Engineer and the U.S. Department of Justice to move forward with the Court’s request.

Suffice it to say that the matter is so complex that it is not possible to project how this may work out. The extreme results could include one or more of the following:

The possibility of significant changes to the situation both in EBID and further upstream explains why the Sierra Club should have a strong interest in monitoring the course of these court proceedings. We certainly have an interest in social justice and we certainly have an interest in the success of agriculture throughout New Mexico and in southern New Mexico in particular. But we also have an interest in the health of the Rio Grande and the wildlife that depend on the Rio Grande. So this court case represents both a potential threat to environmental interests and a potential seat at the table for environmental interests. And of course anyone who is a party to this adjudication needs to consider how best to protect their own water rights. Many Sierra Club Members are defendants in this and other water adjudications.

Scott Boyd claims that he sees himself as being in a position to improve the situation of New Mexico with respect to Texas and the situation of agricultural and other interests along the Rio Grande. He says that it is not his goal to maximize the monetary value of his claims but to receive a fair monetary return for his family’s historical rights that he believes were unfairly taken away plus he wants to establish a mechanism for water rights holders to be able to manage the Rio Grande River and its dams in a way that is more efficient than is the current practice. He believes that the Rio Grande Project and the Rio Grande Compact result in less water being available and he believes that his legal initiative will return more power to water rights holders to manage the river for the benefit of all water rights holders and the environment.

And this case may indeed be like a game of dominoes. If the Federal Government did not act appropriately in the early nineteen hundreds with respect to the rights of one private company, might not that same “attitude” have affected the way other matters impacting New Mexicans were handled by the Federal Government. And if Elephant Butte is basically an illegal structure, does this have an impact on the Rio Grande Compact itself? What is the impact of having a Treaty with New Mexico, a Rio Grande Project, and a Rio Grande Compact that did not take into account Dr. Nathan Boyd’s water rights? If it turns out that those rights are restored as a result of court actions, how will those three obligations based on the assumption that RGD&IC had forfeited its rights be impacted?

Of course this all may just go away. After all, it is primarily a private matter between one family and many powerful forces. Can David win this struggle with Goliath? Scott has some farmers on his side and others very opposed to his efforts. The reason for writing this article is two-fold. Certainly this water adjudication with its many side issues is in itself both interesting and potentially important to the water future of New Mexico. But it also illustrates the potential of unforeseen events to turn things topsy turvy. We need to have contingency plans for such unforeseen events.

It also raises questions about the roles of the State of New Mexico and the Federal Government. Might the result of this case be that New Mexico in the future will have more leeway with respect to managing its own affairs? Might New Mexico have more leeway with respect to protecting the environment? Might there be other issues related to the time that New Mexico was a Territory and the transition to Statehood which would incur additional scrutiny? There is no doubt that this case might be very inconvenient. But it is happening and until resolved or there is a settlement, we have to watch what is happening very carefully and be prepared to become more involved.
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Table 1: Supplementary Information on the Legal Issues Related to the Boyd Estate Claims

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Table 2: Supplementary Information on the Rio Grande Project and the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company (RGD&IC)

Prior to the construction of the Elephant Butte Dam, only the base flow of the Rio Grande was diverted not the un-appropriated flood waters. This was perhaps a more natural situation that was more favorable for wildlife but not so favorable for farmers who repeatedly had ditches washed away by floods and often their water supply dwindled as the summer went on leading to failed crops.

That is why Dr. Nathan Boyd was invited to come to Las Cruces. Although Dr. Boyd was a Medical Doctor, indeed according to Scott Boyd, an Editor of the British Medical Journal, it seems that Dr. Nathan Boyd had already developed a reputation for being quite familiar with water management and dam construction especially based on his role in designing two prior dams including the first major dam in the World, the Aswan Dam in Egypt (not the modern High Dam there). Dr Boyd also had a reputation for being an effective entrepreneur and project organizer. Scott Boyd has informed the author of this article that there are reports that Dr. Boyd invested between a half million dollars to a million dollars of his own money in land purchases, ditch development, and dam development in southern New Mexico.

For purposes of understanding the history of the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company (RGD&IC), it was formed in 1893 as a New Mexico Company. Later it became a subsidiary of a British company formed to provide financing; and even later, the New Mexico subsidiary assumed total control of the operations in a somewhat forced private liquidation.

Just prior to the forfeiture of the rights of the RGD&IC, the Federal Government Reclamation Service, the forerunner to what is now called the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), entered the picture and after the RGD&IC forfeiture essentially built the project planned by Dr. Boyd but perhaps with less skill and at a higher cost. This project is called the Rio Grande Project.

The Rio Grande Bureau of Reclamation Project should not be confused with the Rio Grande Compact (an agreement between Colorado, New Mexico and Texas) which controls the delivery of water from Colorado to a key water flow measuring point called the Otowi Gage and from there to Elephant Butte Reservoir. The Rio Grande Project picks up where the Rio Grande Compact leaves off (actually it predates the Rio Grande Compact) and manages Elephant Butte Reservoir and the release of water to the 90,640 acres of land in New Mexico which have irrigation rights and which form the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) and the 69,010 acres in Texas which have irrigation rights and which form the El Paso County Water Improvement District (EPCWID). Additionally, some 18,000 acres in Hudspeth County Texas benefit from drainage water from the two irrigation districts in the Project.

The creation of the two irrigation districts, one in Southern New Mexico and the other in the El Paso area, was for the purpose of operating the ditches for the farmers to receive Project water as well as to serve as a collection agency for the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) which built the dams so that BOR would not have to be directly dunning farmers for the cost of building the dams. The Project includes the Elephant Butte Dam (a project which cost five times the original estimate and which has since been paid for by the farmers in that area), a major diversion weir dam near Fort Selden, and a number of other diversion dams. The Rio Grande Project has a normal growing season release goal of 730,000 acre feet of water for use by farmers in the two irrigation districts plus an additional 60,000 acre feet of water delivered to Mexico as a result of a Treaty between the United States and Mexico.

The method of allocation of water between New Mexico users and El Paso users was changed in 2008 due to drought and the impact of the increasing use in New Mexico of groundwater to supplement the surface water supplies. Those changes (referred to as the 2008 Operating Agreement) and the method of implementation of the changes are controversial.

In some cases, Project water via modern arrangements is able to be provided to municipalities who have acquired land served by the Rio Grande Project. In theory, the water is not to be severed from the land but it is not clear how that relates to water treatment plants that are located within the district boundaries of EBID and EPCWID. Can EBID or EPCWID water be used for municipal purposes outside the boundary of these two irrigation districts or must municipal users direct development to within the district boundaries to utilize this water for residential or commercial use?

There is a parallel story related to the hydroelectric facility at Elephant Butte Dam which was build at a later time and since sold to a private company. Perhaps we will discuss this and some Rio Grande Project operational issues in a future article.
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March 24, 2010 Update

The March Monthly Report for the Lower Rio Grande Basin Adjudication was filed March 4, 2010 by Jerald A. Valentine, the Presiding Judge

The Court ordered the addition of a fourth Stream System Issue: SS 97-104 and modified the definition of one of the prior three Stream System Issues. A “Stream System Issue” is an issue that affects the interests of all or a substantial number of the parties to a water adjudication.

The new Stream System Issue SS 97-104 is to adjudicate “The Interest of the United States Deriving from the Establishment of the Rio Grande Project”. The Court had previously requested the State Engineer and U.S. Department of Justice to report back on their understanding of the interest of the U.S. in Elephant Butte. This has not yet happened and could be the reason the Court decided to declare the issue to be a Stream System Issue. As discussed in our earlier article, important aspects of this Stream System Issue will likely include the description, quantification, and validity of rights the US Government may claim it has acquired under Territorial Application 8 or in some other way as well as issues related to the estate of Dr. Nathan Boyd as presented by his Great-grandson Scott Boyd.
The other three Stream System Issues are:

Also, the Court is refining the “protocol” for the operation of a panel of experts (the Hydrology Committee) to assist the Court on matters referred to the Technology Committee by the Court. In this particular adjudication, the makeup of the Hydrology Committee might be very significant. At this point in time, there is no environmental organization represented on this Hydrology Committee. That might be a useful step to be taken.

One wonders if the health of the Rio Grande and the safety of both the human beings and the other organisms that depend on the Rio Grande could be a Stream System Issue in a water adjudication. This author will resist the temptation to suggest in detail how such an issue might be framed in a way that it would relate to water rights ownership which is the purpose of a water adjudication. But I will suggest that environmentalists might pay some attention to the possibilities that water adjudications provide for raising and solving environmental issues. How the Rio Grande and the Rio Grande Project are managed may impact the quantity and quality of the water available and thus play a role in a water adjudication. Public Welfare and Conservation may play a role.
State Water Cases (There was no monthly report for January or February).

July 1, 2010 Update

The pace of the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication has accelerated in recent weeks and a major issue that had both delayed moving forward on the four Stream Issues previously defined by the Court and which led to a very unpopular attempt at “mediation” among a subset of the parties appears to have been resolved.

As discussed in the previous update, Jerald A. Valentine, the Presiding Judge over the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication, ordered the addition of a fourth Stream System Issue: SS 97-104 and modified the definition of one of the prior three Stream System Issues. A “Stream System Issue” is an issue that affects the interests of all or a substantial number of the parties to a water adjudication.

The new Stream System Issue SS 97-104 is to adjudicate “The Interest of the United States Deriving from the Establishment of the Rio Grande Project”. The Court had previously requested the State Engineer and U.S. Department of Justice to report back on their understanding of the interest of the U.S. in Elephant Butte Dam and the Reservoir above the dam. In a peripherally related case, the State Engineer replied that:
"This letter is an additional response to your requests, dated January 26, 2010 and February 18, 2010, to inspect records for "Application 8" and "permit 8." All records of the Office of the State Engineer relating to your requests have been produced. This Office possesses no further records, including "Application 8" or "permit 8," that are responsive to your request for inspection of public records"

Thus it would appear that the predecessor to the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) which built (and was repaid by the farmers for) Elephant Butte Reservoir and Dam and later created the Rio Grande Project to serve what now is called EBID and the related water district in Texas, the El Paso County Water Improvement District (EPCWID), did not file a valid application and did not receive a valid permit from the Territory of New Mexico to undertake the Elephant Butte Dam Project. The existence of any other source of Federal Rights to the waters of the Rio Grande awaits further clarification from the Federal Government which seems unlikely at this late date.

It appears that Judge Valentine does not expect to receive anything further substantial from either the State Engineer or the Federal Government with respect to Federal Government rights to the waters of the Rio Grande or Elephant Butte Dam and the Rio Grande Project. This conclusion is based on the Court's willingness at the recent Status Conference on June 24, 2010 for the first time to set schedules for hearing matters related to three of the four stream issues. Steam Issue 103 which relates to domestic wells is to begin on August 2 and Stream Issues 104 and 102 which relates to rights to use Rio Grande Water within New Mexico, whether this be utilized as stream flow from the dam or by groundwater pumping, is to begin on August 3, 2010. The Hydrology Committee created by the Court may be involved in the question of: “is there groundwater that does not originate from the Rio Grande River”.

Many stakeholders have expressed great interest in Stream Issue 104 and many briefs have been filed with respect to this Issue including positions on whether to move forward or continue the stay i.e. the temporary delay on moving into the “discovery” phase with respect to this issue. That question is likely to be an important part of the hearing on August 3, 2010 and it is this reporter's view, based on reading the fillings, that the Court will decide to move forward now that the question of the existence or non-existence of Permit 8 seems to have been resolved. It will be interesting to see how the various alliances among key players continues to evolve as this adjudication proceeds. The next update on this adjudication may be a good time to report on that very interesting aspect of the adjudication.

The question of what rights the Estate of Nathan Boyd might have and the farmers who entrusted their delivery rights to Nathan Boyd's Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company is likely to be resolved early on in the Stream 104 hearings as it is not possible to determine the water rights of current users of Rio Grande Water without determining if there are prior rights with earlier priority dates. The matter is made more complicated because it involves both rights to use and rights to store water and the issues involve the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago, New Mexico Law, New Mexico Territorial Law, and Federal Laws that were in place when the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company was formed and shortly thereafter when its rights were claimed by the Federal Government to have been forfeited by default.

Bill Turner, a major water rights broker has requested to have his Amicus Brief recognized as being relevant to the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication and this hearing is scheduled for July 27, 2010.

It now looks like the control over the Rio Grande in New Mexico will be returned to New Mexican water users and the New Mexico OSE/ISC although it is not clear exactly how that arrangement will be implemented. It will be both interesting to see how the Adjudication plays out and if New Mexico is up to the challenge of managing its water resources. It will also be interesting to see how the role of the BOR will be refined to allow it to continue to serve the needs of New Mexico but on a sounder legal footing. The roles of EBID and the State Engineer might also evolve as a result of this adjudication. Although the pace of developments in this adjudication has accelerated, it will still be some time before we understand the full ramifications of the likely reduced role of the Federal Government in the management of the Lower Rio Grande.

February 3, 2011 Update

In July, 2010 we reported that the pace of the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication had accelerated and a major issue appeared to have been resolved that had both delayed moving forward on the four Stream Issues previously defined by the Court and led to a very unpopular attempt at “mediation” among a subset of the parties.

As discussed in the previous update, Jerald A. Valentine, the Presiding Judge over the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication at that time, ordered the addition of a fourth Stream System Issue: SS 97-104 to adjudicate “The Interest of the United States Deriving from the Establishment of the Rio Grande Project”. The Court had previously requested the State Engineer and U.S. Department of Justice to report back on their understanding of the interest of the U.S. in Elephant Butte Dam and the Reservoir above the dam.

The U.S. Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) petitioned the Court on December 15, 2010 to create a separate Stream Issue (105) to deal exclusively with the rights of the Boyd Estate because “the State of New Mexico has refused to make an offer of judgment to Mr. Boyd on behalf of the RGD&IC. (Personal communication with Laurel A. Knowles, Managing Attorney Lower Rio Grande Adjudication Bureau, Office of the State Engineer.)”. Judge James J. Wechsler, who has taken over the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication from Judge Gerald A. Valentine who retired at the end of 2010, ruled on January 20 that the proposed Stream Issue 105 will move forward.

April 2011 Update (Rio Grande Sierran)

We started our coverage of the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication in the March/April 2010 edition of the Sierran. At that time we asked the questions: What if the actions leading to the creation of Elephant Butte Dam, the Rio Grande Project, and the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) will soon be overturned in court? What might the impact of such a court decision be and might this change be inconvenient for certain parties?

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but this adjudication has moved forward much faster than many might have expected. Just what is an adjudication? It is the process where water rights claimed by users and the sometime conflicting opinion of the Office of the State Engineer (the regulatory authority that maintains the records of such rights and has preliminary authority over water rights) are validated in a court procedure that allows everyone to challenge the rights of everyone else. This is called the “inter se” (among us) part of the adjudication process. Adjudication results in an official vesting of water rights so that these rights can safely be transferred to others and are no longer simply the opinion of the purported right-holder or the Office of the State Engineer. Thus water-right adjudications are always difficult and contentious.

The Lower Rio Grande Adjudication (LRGA) has approximately 18,000 water-rights claimants (strangely called defendants). Complications include the role of the U.S. Reclamation Service, which built Elephant Butte Reservoir apparently without obtaining an approved permit from the New Mexico Territorial Engineer. There is also this messy situation: a private company had earlier been granted the right to build a similar dam and may have completed parts of it before being declared to have “forfeited its rights” rather than being bought out, as other private dams were. This all took place many years ago; the U.S. Reclamation Service later became the Bureau of Reclamation and the Territorial Engineer later became the State Engineer. The private company was the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company owned by Dr. Nathan Boyd, who incidentally was an early supporter of New Mexico statehood. Boyd’s great-grandson Scott Boyd now represents the Dr. Nathan Boyd Estate, which is claiming many of the rights that the U.S. Reclamation Service used to build Elephant Butte Reservoir and create what today is called the Elephant Butte Irrigation District and a related irrigation district in Texas. Needless to say, the claims of the Nathan Boyd Estate are extensive and if judged to be valid would lead to additional claims by the farmers who had contracted with the Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Company for delivery of water to their ditch associations, which creates legal issues that predate New Mexico’s 1907 water code.

The State Engineer rolled the dice by refusing to give the Boyd Estate an Offer of Judgment or settle the claims of the Boyd Estate, and soon we will learn if that gamble was in the best interests of the citizens of New Mexico. It should not be forgotten that the LRGA applies only to New Mexico but the Rio Grande Project covers both New Mexico (EBID) and Texas (EPCWID plus Hudspeth County). So the LRGA is not purely a New Mexico Issue. It impacts Texas as well. The Boyd Estate claim can be found at Boyd Estate Claim The Sierra Club provides updates on this legal struggle at NM Sierra Club - Water. The Feb. 3, 2011 update provides a good assessment of the potential implications of the Boyd Estate Issue, which is part of the LRGA, and we will provide additional updates on that aspect of the adjudication and the Pecan Settlement, another contentious aspect of the LRGA as well as the progress of the determinations of the appropriate Consumptive Irrigation Requirement (CIR) and Farm Delivery Requirement (FDR) for EBID.

Editor's note: Mr. Silber has set up a webserver for a discussion of the State Water Plan Update. Others can subscribe by simply sending an email to NMStateWaterPlan-subscribe@yahoogroups.com