Producers along the central stretch of New Mexico’s Rio Grande river face an early irrigation water shutoff for the second consecutive year.
The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) voted on Aug. 20 to end water deliveries for irrigation starting Oct. 1 due to low water availability and provisions in the 1939 Rio Grande Compact. The shortened season will again cause hardship for farmers, but it couldn’t be avoided, said Mike Hamman, MRGCD’s CEO and chief engineer.
“This is how I provide! This is how I live, day to day, for my family,” New Mexico farmer Travis Harris said during public comments at a MRGCD special meeting.
Glen Duggins, president of the New Mexico Chile Association and a hay and chile farmer in Lemitar, told WLJ the area has been in a drought for the last 20 years, and MRGCD should have planned for the lack of water.
Duggins said the shortened growing season due to delays of water delivery this year caused him to miss the first cutting of hay, and he had to resort to trying chile transplants to get a jump on the season, at a big expense. This was the first year Duggins tried the transplants, and they did not work as well as anticipated, so he will probably not do it again next year.
Duggins said MRGCD needs to invest in infrastructure for water delivery because the Rio Grande in the district dries up every year due to the lack of infrastructure, such as cement canals. Additionally, Duggins says the bosque (Spanish for forest) is overgrown and needs to be thinned, “because the bosque uses more water than all of the agriculture combined.” Keeping water on the farms year-round would be beneficial, Duggins suggested, as it is difficult to start the growing season dry.
Dalene Hodnett, director of communications and media relations for New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau, told WLJ in an email that farmers are taking steps to survive the early water curtailments by using water-saving irrigation techniques, such as drip tape and drilling wells. Hodnett is hopeful that the latest monsoonal moisture will help with water storage as producers prepare for next year’s irrigation season.
In a letter to irrigators on Aug. 16, Hamman said the district’s “No. 1 priority” is to manage available water for agriculture and assist farmers with “efficient on-farm water use to maintain or improve high-quality crop yields even in the light of long-term drought.” Hamman stated this includes grants to manage water use.
Despite monsoon rains received in late June and August, which extended the irrigation season, MRGCD released the last block of stored water on Aug. 15 and forecasts the decline of water will likely occur. Additionally, MRGCD received a request from the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission to consider ending the 2021 irrigation season early to minimize New Mexico’s Rio Grande Compact water debt for 2021.
Under the 1939 Rio Grande Compact, which governs water deliveries among Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, the state owes 96,800 acre-feet to downstream users. Hamman said in the letter to irrigators that unless more monsoon moisture occurs, delivery to the Elephant Butte Reservoir will be less than the required amount and could lead to a much higher debt owed downstream.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, at the MRGCD hearing, Hamman said an extra month of river flows would help “chip our way out of this mess” of water debts by boosting delivery to the Elephant Butte Reservoir.
The reservoir is located just north of the city of Truth or Consequences in Sierra County. The state’s largest reservoir stores water for southern New Mexico and Texas and is an important component of the Rio Grande Compact. According to Water Data for Texas, the reservoir is 5.3 percent full as of Aug. 30. The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) had projected the reservoir would drop to 1 percent of capacity, but monsoon rains have brought some welcome relief, which the BOR projects will end the water season at 4 percent of capacity.
“Mother Nature is not providing [the water], so we have to adjust,” Hamman said at the board hearing. “It’s not us taking it away from anybody, because the water is not even going to be there in October to do anything with unless some miracle happens.”
Due to La Niсa conditions last year, MRGCD delayed this year’s irrigation season start date by a month in spring 2021 to chip away at the water debt. La Niсa conditions are again projected for this winter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last year, the season was cut short a month to October due to drought conditions.
“As long as New Mexico is in debit to the Rio Grande Compact, the district will struggle to meet summer demands without access to El Vado reservoir storage,” Hamman wrote in a letter. “There will likely be severe summer shortages if there is a below-average snowpack supply and limited monsoon rains.”
MRGCD, along with BOR, operates the El Vado reservoir for irrigation and incidental flood control and is subject to the provisions of the Rio Grande Compact. El Vado stores water in excess of downstream requirements. The reservoir also stores water for the six Middle Rio Grande pueblos and other contractors. Supply was bordering on the threshold that would have triggered restrictions allowing only pueblos to receive water, so district officials decided to impose the October cutoff, Hamman said.
MRGCD attorney Chuck DuMars cautioned a longer irrigation season could have harmed New Mexico’s standing as Texas pursues U.S. Supreme Court litigation over water deliveries.
“It would not be good optics, if we had gone forward and continued to increase the debit,” DuMars said.
The 8-year-old U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit is scheduled to go before Special Master Michael Melloy. On Aug. 27, Melloy ruled the trial will be split in half, with the first half virtual and the second portion with in-person testimony from experts on the technical aspects of the case, in Cedar Rapids, IA.
In 2013, Texas filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court alleging New Mexico is allowing groundwater wells near Elephant Butte Dam to divert water hydrologically connected to the Rio Grande, depriving Texas of the full amount of water it is due under the compact. — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
