In Late February of this year as I walked down the trail along the Rio Grande at Leasburg Dam State Park in southern New Mexico, I was struck by the relative lushness of the area. A reasonably deep stream ran in the river bed and I could see the shadowy shapes of carp swimming just below the surface of the mud-brown water. I was told by the park ranger that the stream was fed only by a local hot spring, not by the runoff from the Rocky Mountains headwaters as it should be. South of Leasburg, there was no water in the bed at all at La Llarona Park and only a trickle from irrigation runoff (from wells!) at the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park. The river bed in winter is normally dryer than when the water is let down from the dams, but there always was some water. During the summer season we measured the irrigation water in acre feet; now it is measured in acre inches! The Rio Grande used to be a great river, but that distinction seems to be overstated now, at least in southern New Mexico. As water is pumped from the bolson (basin) and the runoff from the headwaters in the Rocky Mountains has failed, the valley water crisis gets worse.
Water from natural hot spring flows in Rio Grande bed at Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs, New Mexico, late February, 2015.
The Rio Grande just south of the spot where a trickle of waste water disappears into the sand at Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park, NM, late March, 2015.
The Rio Grande in better days, May of 2011 at Broad Canyon near Radium Springs, New Mexico.
The Rio Grande at La Llorona Park, in Las Cruces, in March, 2015.
The pond at Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park, New Mexico, in July with some water from Elephant Butte.
The same pond at Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park, New Mexico, in January after a brief snowstorm.
Water is all important to people and animals living in the Southwest U.S. We hope for good rains during the summer monsoons, but mostly we depend on the snow pack in the Rio Grande watershed that begins in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The dependence has been going on for thousands of years and is especially linked in the north of New Mexico to the acequia irrigation system of water sharing. In the south we depend on the runoff, held in a reservoir by Elephant Butte Dam and Caballo Reservoir back of the more southern Perca Dam on the river, but lately we have mostly depended on the ground water and water wells, like giant straws, suck the precious fluid to our agricultural fields, as well as to the taps in our houses. Right now Texas is suing New Mexico to gain most if not all of the ground water because they claim that it is really stored Rio Grande water and must make up the shortfall of their percentage of the river (See: http://www.lcsun-news.com/....)
A ground water fed irrigation system in the Mesilla Valley, New Mexico.
All the pecans, alfalfa, chile peppers,onions, and other crops are irrigated (the average of about 8 to 9 inches of rain would hardly supply a pecan grove as pecans are flood plain trees) and now through much of the year that irrigation is from pumped ground water. The pond at Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park is increasingly dry most of the year as it depends on water from the river, also called (in Mexico) the Rio Bravo del Norte. A similar lack of water is drying up the Colorado River and threatening the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Further west in California, the preverbal doo-doo is really hitting the fan (See for example: http://www.dailykos.com/....)
Ironically we really do not know how much water is in the Mesilla Bolson, although we are pumping it daily!
A pecan orchard on the east bank of the parched Rio Grande, with the iconic Organ Mountains in the background, March, 2015.
References:
DeBuys, William. 2011. A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest. Oxford University Press, New York, 369 pp.
Dimick, Dennis. 2014. If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until the Aquifers Are Drained. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...
Horgan, Paul. 2012 (originally published in 1954). Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History. Wesleyan, 1041 pp.
Repetto, Roberto. New Mexico's Rising Economic Risks from Climate Change. http://www.demos.org/...
Rodriguez, Sylvia. 2007. Acequia: Water-sharing, Sanctity and Place. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, 216 pp.
Waterman, Jonathan.2010. Running Dry: A Journey from Source to Sea Down the Colorado River.National Geographic, Washington, 305 pp plus map.