At the turn of a tap and the opening of a faucet, water is a commodity at our beck and call. It is a resource many of us use as though it will always be available. But in reality New Mexico water supply is under threat. NASA scientists are projecting dry conditions are only going to get exponentially more severe in the next thirty years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO-frJboMf4
NEW MEXICO’S LARGEST BODY OF WATER: ELEPHANT BUTTE LAKE
Elephant Butte Dam was built in 1916 to store snowmelt flowing from northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The man made reservoir supplies thousands of farmers and municipal users in New Mexico, El Paso, Texas and Mexico with water, in wet and dry years.
New Mexicans April Rede and Diane Reyes spent their Memorial weekend boating, skiing and partying on lake.
“God said let there be water and there was water in the middle of the desert” Rede said.
Over vacations throughout the years, Reyes said she has seen New Mexico’s largest body of water shrink in wake of drought. In June of 2015, it was just 18 percent full.
“It's just it's crazy because I've been here and you jump off the cliffs and then the next year when you come around and you want to jump off it's so low that it's like wow those rocks were really under there. We've been jumping off those cliffs, I'm amazed we didn't hit our heads or break a leg or something.” Reyes said
As vacationers pack up and go home the Elephant Butte irrigation season is just beginning for Hatch and Mesilla valley farmers.
Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) Engineer Phil King is oversees the release being sent down the Rio Grande to make the desert bloom.
“In our desert here if you don’t really have irrigation you can’t grow a crop. You know if you look at the natural vegetation that grows just under rainfall, here it is all these grasses and mesquite and desert plants there are no real viable crops to grow in that kind of an environment.” Kind said.
With a shifting of levers, the water gates open and the Rio Grande is set loose for the first time in 9 months- quenching the dry river beds through Hatch, the Mesilla valley, El Paso and on to Mexico.
Las CrucenMarlena Moreno is one many who came to see the surge of river water flow past Las Cruces.
“This is what New Mexico, New Mexicans live for. This is what we wait for every year it is just an exciting time its what keeps our state flowing. It is what keeps our agriculture and our life growing and it’s really nice.” Moreno said.
“In our desert here if you don’t really have irrigation you can’t grow a crop. You know if you look at the natural vegetation that grows just under rainfall, here it is all these grasses and mesquite and desert plants there are no real viable crops to grow in that kind of an environment.” Kind said.
With a shifting of levers, the water gates open and the Rio Grande is set loose for the first time in 9 months- quenching the dry river beds through Hatch, the Mesilla valley, El Paso and on to Mexico.
Las Crucen Marlena Moreno is one many who came to see the surge of river water flow past Las Cruces.
“This is what New Mexico, New Mexicans live for. This is what we wait for every year it is just an exciting time its what keeps our state flowing. It is what keeps our agriculture and our life growing and it’s really nice.” Moreno said.
According to the U.S. Geological survey, New Mexico has the smallest river surface water supply of any western state. In the region, most of that water is used to grow green chile, pecans and onions.
But it is also the primary source of ground water recharge for the Mesilla Bolson aquifer. where all Las Crucens, like Marlena Moreno get their drinking water.
Sam Fernald is director of the Water Resources Research Institute at New Mexico State University.
Fernald said lower surface water supplies not only means the aquifer isn’t getting recharge with less water seeping into the ground, but farmers are pumping more water out of the aquifer to make up the difference.
“Without that recharge, without the surface water, without the precipitation that soaks into the ground. Then you start getting into a situation where you are extracting more than you are recharging.” Fernald said.
A TASTE OF LIFE WITHOUT WATER: THE NM VILLAGE THAT RAN OUT OF WATER
Emergency workers and volunteers unload water desperately needed water supplies to residents of Magdalena, New Mexico.
Credit Courtesy: New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources
In 2013, during a historic drought the small New Mexico village of Magdalena went dry. Hydrologists regard the village as a taste of what the future could hold for New Mexicans if rising temperatures and scarce water supplies aren’t properly managed.
In June 2013 Magdalena water utilities manager Steve Bailey heard from customers saying that were getting air bubbles in their water lines. So Bailey went to check the village water well.
“We don’t have any water in this well! No warning, no anything. Nothing to tell me, that this was coming.” Bailey said.
The water level was sitting just below the water pump’s reach and according to Bailey 15 feet lower than the last time he’d checked. The mayor called an emergency meeting and told the townspeople they had about two days at most before the village would run out of water completely.
“It was quite the mob scene you know to stand in front of what people did show up who were very upset. What is going on? What happened to the water? What did you guys do wrong?” Bailey said.
Emergency water tanks, bottled water and porta potties were trucked in from surrounding towns.
Stacey Timmons with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources came to assess the well and the situation.
“People were in a daze. It was unbelievable. It was complete shock that this is what was going on in this town. They were walking around like zombies. You turn on the faucet and it is hard to believe how much that actually affects a person. You can’t wash your hands, you cant cook.” Timmons said.
* Despite the water restrictions some businesses continued to operate.
To keep the M&M café and hotel open, owner Linda Mansell brought in two porta potties and secured enough water from friends and neighboring Soccoro.
“I was just kind of using the tactics I would of used If I was out in the woods” “You just take your water and boiling water and stuff like that and you have your certain tubs and chlorine and paper plates and stuff like that too.”
Mansell said she lost some of her permanent hotel tenants, they had to serve food on paper plates. Other businesses were not so fortunate.
The well’s failure dealt a death blow to Magdalena’s only coin laundry it’s now an propane supply store.
Other firms saw major losses when the village canceled its annual heritage event, the old timers reunion.
Mansell says it brings about one thousand people into town every year.
“It just generated a lot more money. I would say it would give us maybe 50% of a kick start for another you know through the winter.” Mansell said.
A group of local businesses including the owners of the Laundromat have filed a lawsuit against the village for their losses citing negligence in maintaining the main well and alternative wells. Bailey says he checked the main well every year as he was supposed to he says it was beyond his control.
“As far as I am concerned was an act of god, whatever you want to call it”
MAGDALENA WATER CRISIS RESHAPES NM GROUNDWATER POLICY
New Mexico Tech hydrologist Fred Phillips says when you look at the temperatures, rain fall and the capacity of Magdalena’s well it isn’t all that surprising the village went dry.
“Is it just like lightening striking out of the blue? Or is it something that maybe we could understand and predict and give people some warning of? Well the answer is that yes. It probably can be predicted.”
Phillips says predications are not always available to small villages like Magdalena with limited resources and expertise. And that’s what Phillips is working to change.
Using Magdalena as a model he is developing a ground water monitoring service to allow water utilities throughout the state to receive electronic alerts if groundwater drops to the dangerously low levels seen in Magdalena.
“The national weather service provides us with warnings of things like flash floods about tornados, about heat waves and so on. People make use of those warning to do all kinds of things, they are just a routine facet of our lives. We don’t have any warnings now about things like water levels declining and wells going dry. There is no reason that we shouldn’t.”
Stacey Timmons says the project could be expanded statewide in the next three years.. but she says enhancing resources is only half the battle; The Magdalena crisis highlighted problems with water regulations in New Mexico.
“They only require that communities measure their well water level once per year and it had been done. The individual in Magdalena had been doing exactly what he was told.’
MAGDALENA WATER USE CUT BY MORE THAN HALF
Magdalena residents and business owners like Mansell have cut their water use dramatically since the town went dry.
Per person daily use dropped from as much as 175 gallons before the water crisis to around 75 gallons today. By comparison, Las Cruces residents average about 166 gallons a day.
“I have cut down a lot on the water, knowing that we don’t need to use that much and I do that at home also. Plus I have big tubs for when that water comes down from the rain. “I try to use that for my plants. ” Mansell said.
Stacey Timmons says she hopes the rest of New Mexico can cut water consumption like Magdalena but says it may take their taps running dry before they do.
Hydrologist Fred Phillips says Magdalena’s water supply has since stabilized. But had it not been for some of the heaviest rain on record the September after the crisis the town might still be recovering.
“It was almost a miraculous saving of the system.”
Water Utilities manager Steve Bailey says the utility spent upwards of $200,000 to get two out of use wells back on line. He now checks the town’s wells every month. Magdalena is not alone.
The New Mexico Water Resources Institute says more than 300 communities in New Mexico depend on a single well for water.
IRRIGATION FARMING IN THE NEW MEXICO DESERT
Many water conservation campaigns focus on taking shorter showers or trading in our lawns for desert plants. But those measures can only make a dent in the water shortfall.
Agriculture uses almost 80% of the states water. One of the most heavy water use crops grown in New Mexico are Pecans.
Unlike onions, chile and alfalfa, which are planted each year, pecan trees are permanent crops that cannot survive without water.
Greg Daviet is a pecan farmer in his hands budding branches of a young pecan tree planted 7 years ago in the heat of the drought.
“If you can’t grow it for more than 20 years, you are probably going to lose money overall.”
Daviet is on the board of the New Mexico Pecan Growers. The group is developing water sharing agreements between Mesilla Valley farmers. They also advocate for the latest water efficiency technologies and irrigation techniques.
Daviet says these measures and the ability to draw on the ground water supply gives farmers flexibility, allowing pecans crops to thrive in the dry conditions.
“When we utilize water in a drought and we actually pump water and we actually deplete the aquifer. During a drought it provides us a benefit that frequently gets missed. That is the idea that there is some place to put the water when it gets wet again. If your bucket is always full when it rains your bucket will flood.”
The Mesilla Bolson; the aquifer that farmers like Daviet are drawing from is also where the city of Las Cruces gets its residential water supply. According to the Water Resources Research Institute it’s dropped 15 feet in 15 years. Sam Fernald is the institutes director.
“The longer that you don’t recharge your bucket, the more risk you have that you are of dipping into the non renewable ground water.” Fernald said.
Elephant Butte Irrigation District Engineer Phil King says farmers are having to drill wells deeper and deeper into the ground to reach the water supply.
But some farmers like Daviet say they’re not worried. They point to the 1980’s when heavier precipitation refilled water pumped out of the aquifer during the drought of the 1950’s.
“It is going to be wet again where there will be more water than we have today”
Daviet said.
But a 2015 NASA climate study suggests those wetter years won’t be coming anytime soon. What will be is even an harsher drought. Projected to last as long as 30 years.
University of New Mexico professor of earth and planetary sciences David Gutzler says these are conditions that climate change could make permanent.
“If we want to keep all of those things that we love about New Mexico, cities that work farm and ranches that can thrive then we better be cognizant of the prospect for significant diminished water resources“ Gutzler said.
Daviet says he is not fully convinced those projections will come to be.
“I am going to grow what is most profitable. Ultimately I am saying I am going to grow what consumers choose that I grow and they simply relay that to me in dollar signs.”
According to USDA data per pound pecan prices increased by more than 30% since the drought began in 2002. And during the same period pecan acreage in New Mexico increased about 20%.
NM STATE CROP GREEN CHILE DECLINES WITH CHALLENGES
Green chile cheeseburgers, green chile enchiladas you can even add green chile at McDonalds.
New Mexicans love for Green Chile runs deep. So much so the New Mexico legislature passed a law cracking down on growers falsely marketing their produce as Hatch green chile.
Stephanie Walker is a vegetable specialist at New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute.
“Once people know and love green chile you have to keep coming back for it. So I think protecting the name is very, very important.”
Imposters, increased labor costs and rival markets have brought challenges that dryer conditions are only compounding.
Scott Adams has been farming in the Hatch valley for 30 years. He said lower river water supplies from the Rio Grande have led chile and onion farmers to pumping more water out of the ground to make up the shortage.
But New Mexico State University studies estimate that that increased pumping in the past few years has quadrupled salt content in the Hatch Valley’s ground water. Salt weakens crops and decreases yields.
“Its toxic to the growing of the crop. It’s like if you tried to grow crops in seawater, they wouldn't grow.” Scott Adams said,
Even with enhanced techniques that have allowed farmers to grow seven times more chile per acre production is down 40% from record highs 10 years ago.
Phil King says this caustic relationship between salt, ground water and lower surface water supplies has made the Hatch Valley the most vulnerable area in the irrigation district.
“It is kind of twice cursed. “They have so much less capacity in their aquifer to buffer the wet years with the dry years.” “Then to have persistent salt problem its is just insult to injury.”
NMSU Chile Pepper Institute vegetable specialist Stephanie Walker says without river water or consistent rainfall that salt remains in the soil.
“The longer growers have to pump water the more salt that is going to build up in the field, the more detriment to the vegetables that they are trying to grow.”
So this year the Elephant Butte Irrigation District released water allocations early to allow Hatch Valley farmers to flush the salt content out of their fields. Scott Adams said though it helps, it’s not a silver bullet.
“There is really no overcoming, you just pray for river water.” Adams said.
King says it would take multiple snow storms up in the mountains and the resulting runoff to flush the Hatch Valley’s salty soil. At the same time studies show the salt content in Rio Grande surface water is also increasing.
'DAIRY ROW' AND GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION
They called ‘Dairy Row’; 11 Concentrated animal feeding operations lining Interstate 10 just south of Las Cruces. Each dairy pumping out an estimated $5.8 million dollars worth of milk every single year.’
But they’re producing more than milk and money. In New Mexico dairy farms discharge 6.4 million gallons of manure and waste every day. Equivalent to the waste generated by about 800,000 people.
“You can only go to so many meetings and listen to a dairy owner say well that’s the smell of money.”
Mesquite resident Arturo Uribe said the profits of dairy farms nearby are being put before his community’s long-term drinking water supply.
The dairy runoff; a mixture of cow manure, sterilizing chemicals and wasted milk can leech off farms and contaminate the ground water below. With salts, chlorides and nitrates if not properly managed.
According to the EPA high nitrates can cause blue baby syndrome, a blood disorder than can force babies to vomit, have seizures and even die.
Engineer Kathy Martin represents community members concerned about their groundwater.
“The nitrates concentrations in 'Dairy Row' are between 50 and 100 parts per million. We are talking five 10 times more than the level where you still can’t drink it.” Martin said.
In 2009, the New Mexico Environment Department found that more than 50 percent of dairies in New Mexico were leeching high levels of nitrates.
But Uribe said ground water contamination from dairy row has been going on far longer than that. But nearby residents have been reluctant to stand up or do anything about it because of connections to the dairies through work and family.
Uribe filed a lawsuit against the dairies even though one of the dairy owners is his brother-in-law.
“It hurt my sister and it hurt their families, it hurt their feelings they were mad.” Uribe said.
The lawsuit brought in New Mexico Environment Department- Water Quality Control Commission Engineer Bart Faris.
He says the contaminated water beneath the dairies hasn’t gotten into the drinking water supply yet but acknowledges even with monitoring there are still a lot of unknowns.
“It is dark down there! You got to understand, to see the detail of each site how water is flowing, how does it move, how does it react this chemical when it hits this certain formation.” Faris said.
Following a regulatory hearing and settlement, the Dona Ana Dairy Farmers agreed to do routine ground water monitoring and line their run off lagoons with heavy plastic to prevent seepage of contaminants.
Ed De Ruyter runs five farms along dairy row he says while dairies are being held to costly regulatory standards. Other contributors to ground water contamination like leaky residential septic tank systems go unchecked.
“We just want to be able to have a realistic approach with agricultural people in mind, so we can handle costs and handle the problem with pollution you know we are trying to be good stewards of the land.”
New Mexico’s remediation plan is to let the water dilute itself naturally. But the state acknowledges that process could take up to 20 years.
While the Dona Ana dairies are now required to line their dairy run off lagoons with plasti, following a state ruling, dairies throughout the rest of New Mexico only have to use clay liners.
Engineer Kathy Martin says they are far less effective and neither of containment plans go far enough to stop ongoing contamination.
"The point is, don’t let it get in to the ground water in the first place.” Martin said.
A lot of people dependent on that ground water, about 15,000 people live in the communities surrounding Dairy Row.
“I think they should leave to be very honest. You are looking at growing communities, with schools they are having major issues with the contamination of the nitrates. It is not a matter of the aquifer going to be contaminated by nitrates due to the dairies, in my opinion it is when” Uribe said.
Other sources of potential sources of ground water contamination include copper mining and oil and gas drilling throughout the state.
HEALTH OF THE RIO GRANDE RIVER SYSTEM
Every single drop of water in the Rio Grande belongs to someone; farmers, citizens and municipalities. But none of it is kept for the Rio Grande it’s self.
“We basically kind of forgot there is this majestic Rio Grande in our backyard and we let it degrade.”
Beth Bardwell is the director of Freshwater Conservation at Audubon New Mexico she says since the Rio Grande was canalized and re-engineered to deliver water to Mesilla Valley farmers and water users in El Paso Texas and Mexico the native vegetation and wildlife the river supports has been declining.
“What we are going from is this dynamic living eco-system to basically a line in the sand.” Bardwell said.
So Bardwell established a program to allow farmers water rights to be traded in and donated back to the Rio Grandes flow.
Bardwell said the program can give native vegetation an edge over invasive plants like salt seeder, that are not good for the riparian system.
While the rivers natural eco-system has been damaged and is declining, lower snow melt and surface run off mean the river can’t even perform the function it has been engineered to.
Elephant Butte Irrigation District Engineer Phil King says the irrigation system was built on the presumption of an abundant river water supply.
“It is not so much what we do, it is what nature does to us.”
Kings says farmers are already fallowing land and drilling deeper ground water wells and in some cases going out of business.
“That is man kinds way, we tend to expand to the limits of our resources and when our resources contract it is painful.” King says.
Bardwell says the state of the distressed Rio Grande might be the first sign that how we are using our water in the region is no longer realistic or sustainable.
“It tells the story of who we are and as we see this river increasingly declining it is really a reflection of what we value and how little we value the natural world and that doesn’t bode well for our future.”
While The Water Supply Projected To Become More Scarce, Funding For Research Declines
New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute Director Sam Fernald says drought or no drought New Mexico still needs to make major changes in the way it manages it’s water supply.
“In the southwest we live in a state of constant scarcity. Our demand is always pushing up or exceeding our supply and then in times our drought that becomes more apparent.
Fernald says unlike other western states New Mexico doesn’t have a measurement of the states total water supply. The legislature has not funded all the needed research.
So as farmers drill deeper and deeper into the aquifer and pump more and more water out of the ground Fernald says it is hard to say how long New Mexico’s water supply will last.
“We are bumping up against the basically limits to use because we are in a drought. That is why we need this data now and they didn’t have them before because there wasn’t this scarcity driving a the need for the research like there is now.” Fernald said.
Fernald says the Rio Grande is the main source of ground water recharge. A Bureau of Reclamation study has predicted the Rio Grande could lose a third of its flow by the end of the century.
