Water in the Desert

You’re looking at one of the largest tributaries in the Middle Rio Grande – the discharge from Albuquerque’s sewage treatment plant. I don’t know the exact numbers, but we’re putting something in the neighborhood of 60,000 acre feet of water per year into the river. Currently, this is largely Pleistocene groundwater being mined from the city’s aquifer – used once, then dumped in the river to augment its flow.