It’s important to understand that the Rio Grande is not a natural system. It’s an engineered system. It’s managed on a daily basis by a consortium of agencies at all different levels of government plus municipal water users and irrigation districts. So partly, (drying is) a product of decisions.
It is also clearly a product of climate change because really, we didn’t get any snow (last winter).
The snow we do get disappears on the way down because it’s hot and the soils are dry. We just can’t really get water down into this desert anymore.
On top of that, we have infrastructure problems like El Vado. It doesn’t store water anymore. Now, we’ve made a temporary fix so we could put water into Abiquiu Reservoir — if we had it.
But the El Vado problem kind of eliminates a longer-term problem: For the foreseeable future, we’re not going to be able to store water because of the Rio Grande Compact.
That does mean when we do have water in the mountains, we do let it run down through the system. But climate change is telling us that’s coming earlier. There’s less snow, and more of it gets lost along the way. Every single place where there’s water use, the water use is more. And so, by the time it gets down here into the desert landscape, there isn’t anything left.
– Dagmar Llewelyn
From Laura Paskus’ much-anticipated new project New Mexico Rivers Rising.
Dagmar is right (of course). Thanks for posting! Miss working with the New Mexico folks !
The Rio Grande is one of most complex river systems in North America, if not the planet, such a shame to watch the system dry up. It was quite an experience to contribute to the water resource work effort there escpecially the research related to climate change. What is described here is the “canary in the coal mine” so to speak, where watching the climate change effects on the Rio Grande became a harbinger for the Colorado River watershed as it too drys up. The Rio Grande was a good analogue to the Colorado given the physical location of being right next door, the interstate compacts, and international boundary delivery requirements with Mexico.
A very solemn message that encapsulates a problem which affects all river basins along the Rocky Mountain East and West Slopes in North America. In my case, being a Hydrologist from the South Saskatchewan River basin in Southern Alberta, Canada, I have seen numerous water shortage bulletins in the last couple of years. Current conditions, which have followed a long hot summer, are beginning to indicate more shortages to come next year. We keep hearing our politicians saying we need thousands of new homes for our growing population out here in our city’s of Calgary and Lethbridge here in the basin. One irrigation district is touting a growth rate of up to 200,000 more acres over the next couple of years. That’s at least a minimum of 200,000 acre-feet of water just to grow wheat!
On a political note, the Rio Grande Compact should be under less pressure these days with all the folks that are leaving California. My 2-bits worth!