So remember all that stuff about the Colorado River not having enough water to meet needs? Turns out the Rio Grande is in a similar heap of hurt (ad walled):

There are a lot of ways to slice and dice water data. But the message on Gretel Follingstad’s PowerPoint slide was simple.

On the right side of the slide was demand. It’s expected to get bigger, as we continue to grow. On the left side of the slide is water supply. It’s not getting bigger.

“The point of it, at the end of the day, is that supply doesn’t meet demand,” Follingstad, a water planner with the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, patiently explained to me as we huddled over her slides after the meeting.