Water in the Desert: Embudo Edition


Embudo

Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck.

Driving up to Taos last weekend to see art, Lissa and I stopped at Embudo in the Rio Grande Gorge to see the oldest continuously operated stream gage in the United States. The river was running about 450 cfs while we were there – not a lot of water, but higher than normal for this time of year.

It’s a great bit of Western water history. It was established in 1889, three years after a devastating drought had the effect of quite focusing the minds of those who had thought rain really did follow the plow and we could build farms out beyond the 100th meridian with reckless abandon.



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