From this morning’s newspaper, we appear to be headed toward Endangered Species Act litigation this year on the Rio Grande: Human water diversions have left the Rio Grande ecosystem with too little water to maintain the minnow and other species that depend on the river’s flow, including the valley’s iconic cottonwoods, said Jen Pelz, Wild …

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Lunch today sitting in the car at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, with a pond of snow geese, pintails and assorted other water fowl wintering here in one of the few broad wet spots in the Middle Rio Grande Valley of central New Mexico. A birder friend explained once that the car makes …

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From this morning’s newspaper: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said Texas can go ahead with its lawsuit that claims groundwater pumping in southern New Mexico is draining the Rio Grande and depriving Texas users of water to which they are legally entitled. Texas cleared a major hurdle with the decision, which could set the …

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My colleauge Lauren Villagran, our new Las Cruces bureau, wrote in this morning’s Journal about the struggle over the future of the Gila River in New Mexico: Should the river run wild, or be managed and controlled? Should New Mexico take the water or leave it?

The status of the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow raises some fascinating transboundary questions. As water moves across state boundaries, who bears responsibility when upstream actions affect an endangered species in a downstream state? The fish, once found from the mountains of northern New Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico, is gone from all but …

Continue reading ‘Stuff various people wrote elsewhere: Colorado’s ESA obligations on the Rio Grande’ »