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Demand Exceeds Supply
John Fleck / Journal Staff Writer
Tue, Apr 10, 2012
Kelly Redmond, a government climatologist who lives at the interface between the
water nature provides and the humans who want to use it, came up with the best
definition of drought I’ve seen: “insufficient water to meet needs.”
The word “drought” most often conjures up the natural side of the equation – the
amount of rain and snow that falls from the sky. But Redmond, of the Western
Regional Climate Center in Reno, captures a central truth about life in an arid
landscape.
Drought is not only about supply. It also is about demand.
Redmond’s words came to mind over the past week as I watched the differing reactions to the Rio Grande runoff forecast
for April.
At San Marcial, the last Rio Grande measurement point above Elephant Butte, the forecast calls for 29 percent of the
long-term average. If it holds up, it would mean 13 of the past 15 years have had below-average runoff.
Any way you look at it, that qualifies as a drought.
The result is very little river water for farmers. “We’re crushed,” said Gary Esslinger, who manages the Elephant Butte
Irrigation District, delivering what water there is to Lower Rio Grande Valley farmers.
Wet years have a way of covering up a multitude of water management sins. Drought exposes them for all to see.
Back in the 1990s, we had all the same underlying water management problems in this state, but a string of wet years
left Elephant Butte full and allowed us to ignore our problems.
A run of 13 dry years out of 15 years since then on the Lower Rio Grande has left us with insufficient water to meet the
needs of all the water users in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
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It’s hard to keep track of who’s suing who as a result.
The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office last year sued the federal government over the way Elephant Butte’s water is
accounted for and managed, a feud that has either directly or indirectly dragged in other water users up and down the
river, from the farmers in the Albuquerque reach of the river to Las Cruces, all choosing sides.
Meanwhile, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas can’t agree on how to account for who owns how much of the pool that
sits now in Elephant Butte. At a meeting of the Rio Grande Compact Commission in Austin last month, representatives
of the three states ended up in a standoff on the question. The water accounting sheets developed by the three states
explaining their competing views of hydrologic reality run to 23 pages total.
Then in the past few weeks, the early release of water from Elephant Butte to meet U.S. treaty obligations to deliver
water to Mexico triggered an international tiff that still hasn’t settled. U.S. users complain that starting releases this
early in the year, as Mexico requested, ensures that water will be wasted as it makes its way down to Mexico’s
diversion gates, soaking into the dry riverbed – losses that have to be borne entirely by the U.S. farmers.
Rep. Steve Pearce, R-NM, called the problem “a huge loss for those who so desperately depend on this water for their
jobs. Farmers in this area have already suffered the effects of drought and do not need additional interference.”
Texas farmers, who also feared they would be hurt, juggled their irrigation schedules. They hoped that running some of
their water down the river at the same time as Mexico’s water would help cut the losses that otherwise would have been
inevitable as the dry riverbed soaked up the scarce supplies.
Underlying the drought-triggered fussing is a long-term court battle, more than two decades old with no clear end in
sight, over “adjudication” of the Lower Rio Grande’s water – the process under state law of determining who is entitled to
how much of the valley’s scarce water. One key question in that litigation is how to account for groundwater pumped by
farmers when their river water supplies fall short.
None of this would be much of a problem but for 90,000-plus acres of thirsty farmland in the Elephant Butte Irrigation
District. That’s the “needs” part of Redmond’s definition.
The current drought should not come as a surprise. The San Marcial runoff numbers for the past 15 years bear a strong
resemblance to the drought of the 1950s – close enough in historical memory that it’s the kind of eventuality worth
planning for.
It appears most of the Lower Rio Grande’s farmers will get by OK again this year by pumping groundwater (again) to
make up for the river’s shortfalls. But the farmers’ problems are a reminder that nature is providing New Mexico
insufficient water to meet our needs. We’re in drought.
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UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. Comment directly to John Fleck at 823-3916 or [email protected]. Go
to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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