Early March is usually when I emerge from my wintry water nerd slumber and begin tracking the rise in my beloved hometown river, Albuquerque’s Rio Grande. Yesterday morning the core family unit packed sandwiches and went down to the Rio Bravo Bridge, on Albuquerque’s south side. It’s a favorite spot because of the graffiti – …
This week’s newest U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Rio Grande runoff model runs have triggered a string of “wait, what?” conversations this afternoon at the Utton Center. possible drying through Albuquerque as early as June, with a good chance of drying even earlier we may already have passed the spring runoff peak irrigation supplies, already short …
The preliminary March 1 runoff forecast from Karl Wetlaufer, the federal government employee at the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service who provides vital information to help us make informed water management decisions, is yikes: February brought another month of well below median precipitation across the entire Rio Grande basin. As one would anticipate this generally …
Continue reading ‘Record low March 1 snowpack in some New Mexico watersheds’ »
I got a text message yesterday afternoon about this, which is nuts: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Albuquerque District announced today that an unintended water release from Cochiti Dam may increase flood risk on the Rio Grande in the river channel, riverbanks, and floodway. The cause of the unintended water release was a procedural error …
BERNARDO, NEW MEXICO – The juniper pollen has cranked up early this year, and the irrigators with groundwater pumps (legal or not, it’s hard to know) are firing them up, but the most telling sign of spring was the kettling sandhill cranes this morning. The term comes from the boiling water in a kettle, as …
The January NRCS Rio Grande runoff forecast is lousy: a mid-point forecast of 65 percent of average at Otowi (upstream of Albuquerque) and 37 percent of average at San Marcial (downstream of Albuquerque). Based on the current snowpack, I expected worse. Forecaster Karl Wetlaufer, in the email distributing the numbers, explains: After a wet start …
Continue reading ‘Lousy Rio Grande snowpack, but the runoff forecast is not as bad as I thought!’ »
We took the New Mexico Rail Runner train north for yesterday’s bike ride to Bernalillo, crossed over the Rio Grande, and worked our way down through the weird neighborhoods of Rio Rancho, New Mexico. The homes in that part of Rio Rancho are scattered one-offs, with a lot of unpaved roads wrapping their way up …
The US Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this month (December 2024) once again declined to list the Rio Grande cutthroat trout as “endangered.” It’s a native species endangered (in the colloquial sense, not the legal sense) by both anthropogenic habitat changes (warm temperatures, less water, dams and stuff) and non-native immigrant species. USFWS identified non-native …
Continue reading ‘The Rio Grande cutthroat trout and the Endangered Species Act’ »
It’s that time of year when I’m looking for a storm a week to build a snowpack. More is better. Zero is not better.
The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District Board this afternoon (Monday Oct. 14, 2024) approved an agreement among the District, the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, and the Bureau of Reclamation for temporary storage of District water in Abiquiu Reservoir on the Rio Chama while El Vado Reservoir is out of comission. This is a …
Continue reading ‘MRGCD Board Approves Abiquiu Storage Deal’ »