Federal water managers yesterday (May 18, 2026) began pushing a pulse of water through New Mexico’s rapidly drying Middle Rio Grande to try to encourage the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow to spawn.

From a note sent ’round to the Bureau’s water management list yesterday by Carolyn Donnelly, water operations supervisor for the bureau’s Albuquerque Operations Office:

Due to the record low snowpack and well above normal temperatures in March, the Rio Grande did not have a typical spring flow increase. That type of spring flow increase is what triggers the Rio Grande silvery minnow to spawn, and without it, the silvery minnow spawn has been minimal this year. Because 2026 is the third poor hydrologic year in a row, silvery minnow numbers are concerningly low.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service therefore asked the Bureau of Reclamation to use its leased San Juan – Chama water to create a brief higher flow through Albuquerque, hoping to trigger a more robust silvery minnow spawn. Crews will be out in the river this week collecting silvery minnow eggs to provide to hatcheries for later augmentation and broodstock.

Flows at Albuquerque’s Central Avenue Bridge have been hovering around 10 cubic feet per second. The river’s managers bumped the release out of Cochiti Dam at the head of the valley by 250 cfs yesterday. (The increase actually started upstream at Abiquiu Reservoir Sunday.) The water being released was imported from the Colorado River Basin via the San Juan-Chama diversions in the mountains of southern Colorado, then leased by the USBR from San Juan-Chama contractors not using their full allotment.

The inordinate mental cost of writing the preceding paragraph at 5:37 a.m. reminded me of the complexity. “The Bureau increased”? “The Army Corps of Engineers increase”? USFWS? SJC? And what happens as the water passes through the system? It’s passing a bunch of Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (a local agency) diversions, which will have to be managed to keep water in the main channel for the fish. Stunningly polycentric, this system.

Or maybe I just need to finish my second cup of coffee. The 2026 water year is testing a lot of our mental and emotional faculties, and the chemicals we use to manage them. It’s a good thing weed is now legal in New Mexico.