The Middle Rio Grande Uses Much More Than Its Share
Water flowing down the Rio Grande that is legally owned by and destined for Lower Rio Grande water users is being intercepted and consumed in the Middle Rio Grande.
In 2025 through May, the Middle Rio Grande was entitled to 43% of the 239,900 acre-feet this year’s native Rio Grande water supply, as measured at the Otowi Bridge gage—adjusted for upstream storage changes and San Juan-Chama imported water. The Middle Rio Grande consumed much more, including 38,400 acre-feet of the Lower Rio Grande’s water. The Lower Rio Grande is entitled to 57%. It got 39%.
The Middle Rio Grande’s spiraling water debt is out-of-control. New Mexico is on track to violate the compact soon. Texas undoubtedly will sue.
Nat Chakeres, General Counsel for the Office of the State Engineer, described this problem in his excellent presentation at the Water Advocates May 15th workshop. He described preparations underway for the State Engineer’s forthcoming Middle Rio Grande regulatory actions to be announced soon. Nat answered a question saying he didn’t think 2025 deliveries would fall short by more than 76,000 acre-feet—the remaining margin before an outright violation of the Rio Grande Compact. When asked for supporting data, he deferred to the Interstate Stream Commission. My calculations show the Middle Rio Grande has burned through half of that remaining margin as of the end of May.
Nat’s presentation was one of the best: extremely well organized, clearly presented, frankly informative, and very timely. He clearly explained the water the Rio Grande Compact provides to the Middle Rio Grande and what it requires. He traced the shift from the Middle Valley’s small delivery credit in 2018 to a growing water debt that reached 124,000 acre-feet by the end of 2024. He emphasized the urgent need to significantly reduce total depletions from the river. “If the next seven years look like the last seven,” Nat warned, “it will be too late.”
Unless we act now—with enforceable limits—New Mexico could face Compact violation and a loss of control over our water future.
We agree—and we believe it may already be too late. Regardless, it’s much better for the State Engineer as New Mexico’s water regulator to begin strong, appropriate actions in 2025 than to by default cede authority and control to the judiciary.
So, how are we doing this year? As a former ISC Director, I know where to find the data and do the compact math. Think of the following as my best estimate, that of an observer rather than an insider with access to the best data and current information. I’m putting forward my estimates with those caveats, transparently.
In recent years, the total of all Middle Rio Grande water uses has consumed much more water from the Rio Grande than is ours. 2025 continues the spiral. There is no effective state regulation or self-regulation by institutional water users to protect the water commons. Groundwater pumpers are not suffering a shortage and have increased pumping to offset lack of surface water and increased demand. That pumping causes increased river seepage losses and consumes stored groundwater.
The facts of 2025 per my calculations summarized below are alarming.
Otowi Bridge Gage Volume to Date: 227,500 acre-feet of water have flowed past the USGS Otowi Bridge gage through May 31, per my calculation based on 15-minute gage readings over the first 151 days of 2025. Some measurements are missing but use of averages is adequate for this preliminary estimate.
The 227,500 acre-foot total winter and spring runoff volume is very low. No snowpack remains, in the Colorado or New Mexico Rio Grande headwaters.
Otowi Index Flow: The total volume flowing past the Otowi Bridge gage is adjusted to determine the amount of native Rio Grande water subject to the compact’s sharing requirements. To calculate the index, subtract 20,000 acre-feet of San Juan-Chama Project water and add 32,400 acre-feet of native water federal agencies stored for the pueblos. The total volume to date this year that must be divided between the Middle and Lower Rio Grande is 239,900 acre-feet.
Delivery Requirement: Of that adjusted total, 57%, or 136,700 acre-feet, is legally allocated to users downstream from Elephant Butte Dam.
Actual Delivery: Based on Elephant Butte Reservoir storage and release data, 99,300 acre-feet have arrived—net of all uses and losses between Otowi and the dam, meaning after accounting for diversions, evaporation, and seepage and unknown losses and errors. This is a 39% delivery, must less than the 57% required.
Cumulative Deficit: The Middle Rio Grande is entitled to 43%, or 103,200 acre-feet. Middle Rio Grande overuse this year to date is 37,400 acre-feet, increasing the cumulative water debt to -161,400 acre-feet.
From a slight credit in 2018 to a deficit of -161,400 acre-feet in May 2025—our water debt has quickly grown out of control.
Figure 1. The Middle Rio Grande’s Plunge Into Compact Water Delivery Debt
Unless we have a strong monsoon, 2025 will push the Middle Valley even deeper into water delivery debt. If the monsoon is weak, none of the water stored upstream for the pueblos’ indigenous rights is likely to be delivered. Little to none of the steady summer low flows expected at Otowi will make it through the Middle Rio Grande. For much of the summer, the riverbed below Albuquerque will be dry—and when flow resumes, rewetting the channel will consume large volumes of water that will not count toward deliveries.
No emergency declared. No plan. No accountability. Most Middle Rio Grande residents remain unaware of the stakes.
Here we are once again doing little, saying less. The House Appropriations and Finance Committee stripped without comment the Governor’s request to increase the State Engineer’s annual budget $500,000 for staff, office space, and expenses for the agency to address the Compact delivery crisis. No public emergency is declared. No action plan has emerged. Reporting is sparse with unheeded exceptions. Most Middle Rio Grande residents remain unaware of the stakes.
The Water Advocates commends General Counsel Nat Chakeres and State Engineer Liz Anderson for their transparency in the General Counsel’s announcement in a public forum that significant policy changes are coming soon, including notices to all large water users, a metering order for all large wells, and the initiation of the Middle Rio Grande adjudication. We appreciate his frank evaluation of our basic alternatives, contrasting the benefits of negotiated agreements with fighting it out first in court only to be forced to settle or having an adverse judicial order imposed. As he put it, there are water uses that are not going away.
We need more, much more, than Nat’s introduction to forthcoming policy changes. If we do not act now—with transparency, accountability, and enforceable limits—New Mexico could face Compact violation, new United States Supreme Court litigation with Texas, and a potentially devastating loss of control over our own water future. Compliance is the barrier against all of that.
Regardless, I urge New Mexico’s two state water resources agencies to become more transparent; They must name, describe, and quantify our vexing water overuse problems. That is the first step toward solving them.
Norm Gaume, P.E. (ret.)
President, New Mexico Water Advocates
A Glossary of Terms for Middle Rio Grande Water Management is available here.
As a retired professional engineer, I have used care in completing these calculations, but they rely on incomplete information and have been checked only by me. I stand by my conclusions even though I want to make it clear the specific numbers are preliminary and my calculations are simplified. Therefore, I do not warrant the numbers I calculated from provisional and unpublished agency data. If my numbers are incorrect, I hope the ISC will let me know and provide their professional estimates, as referenced by Nat.
New Mexico is not confronting a legal and water management crisis in the Middle Rio Grande. Public conversations are missing, including at the 2025 Legislature. The central question:
What actions are being taken—or not taken—to change our trajectory toward violating the Rio Grande Compact due to chronic annual depletion in the Middle Rio Grande of large volumes of the Lower Rio Grande’s water?
Nine interrelated facts together define this perilous situation—one that remains largely unacknowledged and without an adequate response.
1. 2025 is shaping up to be a record-dry year.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s February Annual Operating Plan projects dry river conditions across the Middle Rio Grande from May through August. Hydrographs show stretches of the river drying for months. “Central” refers to the gage at the Central Ave bridge in Albuquerque. San Acacia Floodway refers to the flow in the river downstream from the San Acacia diversion dam located north of Socorro.
2. Snowpack collapse is historic.
The Rio Chama snowpack recently has set record daily lows: zero percentile snow water equivalent!
Rio Grande Colorado headwaters: 5th percentile.
The Upper Rio Grande snowpack in New Mexico: 4th percentile.
Upper San Juan: 5th percentile
2025 San Juan–Chama Project deliveries in 2025 at record low: projected to be 46% of the 1990s “firm yield” used in regional supply planning, including the Albuquerque Water Authority’s 100-year plan.
3. Rio Chama runoff may not meet critical obligations.
At the March 20 ISC meeting, Director Hannah Riseley-White warned that total Rio Chama runoff may not meet the federal storage target for Pueblo prior and paramount water. Federal agencies plan to store record volumes of Rio Chama to ensure the Pueblos’ water supply.
4. Compact compliance requires delivery of 57% of native flow entering the Middle Valley to Elephant Butte.
Flow entering the Middle Valley includes the Rio Chama. If Chama runoff is dedicated to meet the Pueblos’ prior and paramount water rights, is it possible for the State to meet the 57% delivery requirement to Elephant Butte?
5. Compact delivery debt is dangerously high.
Since 2018, the Middle Rio Grande has depleted 155,800 acre-feet of the Lower Rio Grande’s water. As of January 1, 2025, New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande cumulative water delivery debit stands at -124,000 acre-feet. Another 76,000 acre-feet of water debt will violate the Compact. Annual water delivery debts have exceeded 76,000 acre-feet in five of 85 years, historically.
Such a violation is certain to trigger Texas to file a new United States Supreme Court lawsuit, compounding the ongoing Lower Rio Grande litigation and exposing the state and the Middle Rio Grande to legal, economic, and political risk. Half of New Mexico’s population and economy resides in the Middle Rio Grande zone of chronic water overuse—and imminent legal exposure.
6. The State Engineer has issued clear warnings.
A fact sheet prepared for the 2025 Legislature stated:
“A compact violation could trigger curtailment and/or costly litigation that may result in severe and unpredictable shocks to the economy and water supply for agricultural and municipal users in the middle and lower Rio Grande.”
7. The Legislature did not fund prevention efforts.
The 2025 Legislature rejected the Governor’s proposed $500,000 increase for State Engineer compact compliance staff.
8. Enforcement legislation failed again.
For the second year, lawmakers declined to pass legislation that would authorize the State Engineer to take effective administrative enforcement against illegal water use.
9. Active Water Resource Management is missing in action.
Despite the New Mexico Supreme Court’s 2012 unanimous opinion approval upholding the statute and detailed General Rules in 2012, district-specific rules for the Middle Rio Grande have not been adopted.
New State Engineer Liz Anderson may move ahead to ensure compliance with the AWRM law, Section 72-2-9.1 NMSA 1978, which states,
“A. The legislature recognizes that the adjudication process is slow, the need for water administration is urgent, compliance with interstate compacts is imperative and the state engineer has authority to administer water allocations in accordance with the water right priorities recorded with or declared or otherwise available to the state engineer.
B. The state engineer shall adopt rules for priority administration to ensure that authority is exercised: … “
Ask Yourself
Why have New Mexico elected leaders not responded to this preventable crisis?
Do they and we realize we’re enabling or participating in a tragedy of the commons?
Why aren’t we implementing and enforcing the present state water laws designed to prevent that?
Are our decision-makers—and the public—adequately informed?
Ask our leaders and water institutions, besides praying for monsoons, what are we doing?
A Call to Action
The 2025 Legislature is over, but this crisis can’t wait until the Legislature reconvenes in January 2026. Two critical avenues remain.
1. Engage the Legislative Interim Committees
Interim committees shape next year’s legislation. We must:
Urge committee chairs—especially Legislative Finance and Water and Natural Resources—to hold hearings on compact compliance.
Provide clear presentations connecting snowpack and flow data to our legal obligations.
Emphasize the stakes and costs of not confronting the crisis.
Engaging legislators and interim committees is how we build understanding and momentum for action in the 2026 Legislature. Reinstating the compact compliance staff cut from the Governor’s 2025 budget request must be a top priority. The State Engineer cannot meet this challenge without them.
2. Press State Agencies to Act Now
The Interstate Stream Commission and Office of the State Engineer already have:
Statutory authority to confront and manage this crisis,
Clear legal obligations to deliver compact water and enforce priorities, and
Substantial human and budget resources.
They must immediately:
Declare an emergency.
Declare compact compliance a top priority.
Publicly assess delivery risk and publish a response plan.
Communicate and coordinate with all water users to reduce depletions.
Implement the Active Water Resource Management framework now.
These are not new ideas. They are long-standing obligations. What’s missing is action.
We still have a chance to avert this avoidable disaster. The time to act is now.
New Mexico’s water resource management agencies are telling the Legislature that New Mexico faces Middle Rio Grande compact jeopardy and lacks capacity to prevent that jeopardy from becoming a disaster. What jeopardy, you might be thinking? This is how the Office of the State Engineer (OSE) describes it (emphasis in the original):
If hydrology does not improve, and without further action, New Mexico could violate the Rio Grande Compact – an agreement between New Mexico and our neighboring states related to how the waters of the river are shared. A compact violation could trigger curtailment and/or costly litigation that may result in severe and unpredictable shocks to the economy and water supply for agricultural and municipal users in the middle and lower Rio Grande. […]
If depletion reductions are managed in a proactive manner, New Mexicans can retain local control over water management and have certainty about water rights management into the future.
Maintaining New Mexico’s compliance with the Rio Grande Compact requires additional resources now.
What is the Rio Grande Compact and what does it require of the Middle Rio Grande?
The Rio Grande Compact, like other interstate river water allocation compacts in the West, is state law in all the states subject to the compact. It is also federal law. Once signed by the Governors of the states and the President of the United States, following passage by the state legislatures and Congress, an interstate stream compact is binding. It can be changed only by agreement. Interstate water disputes involving compacts are evaluated and enforced by the United States Supreme Court. There is no appeal.
Turmoil erupted along the Rio Grande when Coloradans diverted all the flow they could from the Rio Grande in the 1890s. The river at El Paso was dry. Three decades of interstate disputes were settled by a 1929 federal moratorium on all Rio Grande water development. After a remarkable and intensive federal hydrology investigation, the Rio Grande Compact was negotiated and signed at Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe in 1938.
The Rio Grande Compact makes three allocations for water use in New Mexico.
The Upper Rio Grande may continue using as much water as it was, and no more, as an implicit condition of the compact. No formal compact accounting procedure to enforce this provision exists. New Mexico is not in violation because Upper Rio Grande irrigation has declined substantially.
Lower and Middle Rio Grande allocations
New Mexico must deliver water through the Middle Rio Grande for use in the Lower Rio Grande. The compact allocations require a minimum of 57% of the water flowing under the Otowi highway bridge to Los Alamos be delivered for Lower Rio Grande uses. New Mexico’s annual allocation is the other 43%, capped at a maximum of 405,000 acre-feet per year.
For accounting purposes, the Middle Rio Grande inflow is adjusted for net storage change over the year in New Mexico’s reservoirs constructed after the 1929 moratorium.
The graphic below illustrates these allocations. The Middle Rio Grande portion of the annual Otowi inflow volume is the turquoise sliver. The Lower Rio Grande is entitled to 100% of the annual volume that exceeds 1,200,000 acre-feet in one year, the orange wedge. The compact was designed to fill Elephant Butte Reservoir in flood years.
In addition to Otowi gage annual inflow allocation, the Middle Rio Grande is entitled to deplete the annual inflow volume from tributaries entering the Middle Rio Grande plus all San Juan-Chama Project imported water released to San Juan-Chama Project contractors..
The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) oversees the Rio Grande Compact situation for New Mexico and supports the New Mexico Compact Commission, who is always the State Engineer.
Internally within New Mexico, the State Engineer has the legal authority to enforce compact water delivery requirements, but has never done so on one of the state’s major rivers.
The ISC works with representatives of the Bureau of Reclamation, Colorado, and Texas to prepare the compact accounting annually for the Rio Grande Compact Commission’s approval. Water deliveries from the Middle Rio Grande for use in the Lower Rio Grande are measured as the change in storage in Elephant Butte Reservoir plus the volume released from Elephant Butte Reservoir during the year. The compact caps the Middle Rio Grande’s allowable cumulative water debt at 200,000 acre-feet
Rio Grande Compact Litigation in the Lower Rio Grande
New Mexicans residing in the Lower Rio Grande are entitled by the compact to deplete 57% of the water released from Elephant Butte Dam but are using more through heavy agricultural and municipal groundwater pumping adjacent to the river. Texas sued New Mexico for a Rio Grande Compact violation in 2012 claiming New Mexico groundwater pumping was taking New Mexico water. The United States intervened on the Texas side and presented its own claims.
Actions by large New Mexico pecan growers who depended on massive groundwater pumping were the trigger. Large growers dominated the Elephant Butte Irrigation District Board. The EBID board gave New Mexico’s Rio Grande water to Texas irrigators to offset the effect of their pumping on the river. The deal between the New Mexico and Texas irrigators included and was implemented by the Bureau of Reclamation. They completely bypassed the State of New Mexico. The pecan grower purpose was to pump groundwater to irrigate their permanent crop regardless of surface water shortages. In 2011, New Mexico sued Reclamation in Federal District Court over Reclamation’s lack of authority for its actions. Texas reacted, suing New Mexico the next year in the United States Supreme Court.
The author as ISC Director addressed explicit Texas’ Lower Rio Grande SCOTUS litigation threats from 1997 through 2002, with Texans water agency staff literally pounding on the table in Santa Fe. A year or two later, they cancelled an Austin, Texas, meeting before it was supposed to end, after being confronted by the ISC chair and vice-chair with New Mexico’s counterclaims of Texas, as lawyers say, “dirty hands.”
As an aside, Enron-style charm was a component of the Texas effort in the late 1990s. Enron hosted a lavish reception at the gated, art-filled compound of a wealthy Santa Fe resident. New Mexico and Texas legislators and agency staff attended. It was pretty clear one purpose was a Santa Fe summer break for Texans. Yes, that Enron.
A settlement to the current Texas and US v. New Mexico SCOTUS litigation over the Lower Rio Grande continues on after 12 years and over $100 million in New Mexico litigation costs. A settlement agreed by the states and accepted by the prior Special Master but not the Court itself, would require NM to reduce groundwater pumping by about 18,000 acre-feet per year. The negotiated settlement didn’t financially penalize New Mexico due to the counterclaims New Mexico developed and proved against both Texas and the United States.
The hang-up to the settlement is the Department of Justice. It objected, saying New Mexico can’t be counted on to do what it commits to and that New Mexico needed to give to Texas water that has long been settled as New Mexico’s. The proposed settlement – agreed between the states but unacceptable to the Department of Justice – adds a new gage at El Paso and a complex new accounting procedure to measure New Mexico’s annual Lower Rio Grande delivery compliance, if the SCOTUS accepts it.
The SCOTUS ordered mediation under a new Special Master, who is a senior, no nonsense federal judge. The second of the current of compelled mediation sessions presided over by the demanding new special master was held in Washington, D.C. February 26-28, 2025. The Special Master set a trial date for June.
SCOTUS litigation, in addition to being extremely costly and risky, is very demanding of the state’s water resources agencies leaders bandwidth. They don’t need another dose. But,
The Middle Rio Grande Water Delivery Debt is Alarming and Growing.
New Mexico’s water delivery debt as of the end of 2023 was 121,500 acre-feet. Despite some cooperative efforts between the state and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District to reduce the debt in 2024, New Mexico’s preliminary accounting indicates the debt grew slightly to about 123,000 acre-feet. These two graphs illustrate the debt trends and the importance of the litigation credit that New Mexico successfully negotiated with Texas in 2022. The Rio Grande Compact Commission agreed that only New Mexico, and not Reclamation, has the authority to dispose of New Mexico water stored in Elephant Butte.
New Mexico can count on a new Texas SCOTUS lawsuit when the cumulative delivery debt exceeds the 200,000 acre-feet per year limit. We already have seen one version of the Texas complaint, filed when Texas attempted to bring Middle Rio Grande water issues into the Lower Rio Grande litigation.
Relevant History That the Middle Rio Grande Policy- and Decision-Makers Should Understand
New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande compact compliance history has a story to tell. The 1938 compact was barely in existence when two consecutive flood years occurred in 1941 and 1942. Huge floods filled Elephant Butte Reservoir, which overflowed. The floods destroyed the channel of the Rio Grande. Aerial photography of the river below the Bosque del Apache in the late 1940s shows only a sea of salt cedar; no river channel is visible.
Texas sued in the early 1950s. The United States said it was an indispensable party to that lawsuit because of its trust relationship with the Pueblos but refused to participate. Before the lawsuit was dismissed, Reclamation rebuilt the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and installed the river diversion dams. It still owns them.. Reclamation designed a narrow channel between levees and channelized the Rio Grande in its current position. The channelization, deep drains, and major water salvage infrastructure worked to substantially increase New Mexico’s deliveries to the Lower Rio Grande. Texas dropped the lawsuit and New Mexico came into compliance, which has lasted over 50 years.
.
The 1980s and 1990s were the wettest two decades of the last 1000 years. Elephant Butte Reservoir spilled in 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1995. Now we are in the driest decades of more than 1000 years and Elephant Butte Reservoir is drained.
The fundamental problems are these. Our water supplies are down. Our water demands are up. We are courting new high water use industry. We have a continuous, dense water-loving and publicly treasured riparian forest between levees on both sides of the river that never existed before. Groundwater pumping has expanded. Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District expanded their irrigated acreage on newly developed farmland, which they still are allowed by the Legislature to do.
Half of all New Mexicans live in the Middle Rio Grande, many from rural New Mexico seeking employment. While water is never far from the thoughts of most rural New Mexicans, many of whom hold it sacred as do the Water Advocates, water is a taken-for-granted commodity for most urban dwellers.
We are not facing this problem. The 2025 Legislator has appropriated nothing – That’s Right – Nothing – to deal with it. The saying, “Poor New Mexico, so far from Heaven, so close to Texas,” attributed to New Mexico Governor Manuel Armijo about 1850, seems to fit the situation confronting us with the current budget. The House of Representatives allocated $48 million for brackish water development but zero for proactive efforts to maintain Middle Rio Grande compact compliance. Now it’s up to the Senate.
Active Water Resources Management is the Solution
Fortunately, there is already a fully authorized legal mechanism to curtail overuse and prevent the pending compact violation. A bill passed by the 2003 Legislature authorized a program called Active Water Resources Management. The law, Section 72-2-9.1 NMSA 1978, granted new authority to the State Engineer. It says, in part,
The legislature recognizes that the adjudication process is slow, the need for water administration is urgent, compliance with interstate compacts is imperative and the state engineer has authority to administer water allocations in accordance with the water right priorities recorded with or declared or otherwise available to the state engineer. The state engineer shall adopt rules for priority administration to ensure that authority is exercised: (1) so as not to interfere with a future or pending adjudication; (2) so as to create no impairment of water rights, other than what is required to enforce priorities; and (3) so as to create no increased depletions.
The Office of the State Engineer issued General Rules to implement this new authority in 2004. The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously upheld the rules in 2012.
The AWRM program was designed for the Rio Grande. It is the law. AWRM will prioritize water rights to protect senior users, essential domestic uses regardless of priority, require accurate measurements of groundwater pumping, and enforce reductions by junior water rights owners. Creation of a water bank so that water can be accessed by otherwise curtailed junior users is a requirement. The water bank will allow otherwise curtailed junior water rights holders to lease water from senior water right owners who in exchange for money will make their water available, reducing conflict and encouraging conservation. It’s complex but essential.
The Deputy State Engineer and the OSE General Counsel presented an informative workshop describing the “carrots and sticks” of compact compliance in May 2024. The video recording is available under “Past Events” at nmwateradvocates.org. The General Counsel is scheduled to present again on the Middle Rio Grande Compact situation at the Water Advocates’ May 15, 2025 3rd Thursday evening workshop. Preregistration is required and will be available soon on the Water Advocates website.
The Legislature must fund the State Engineer to apply AWRM to the Middle Rio Grande or all New Mexicans will suffer the costs and Middle Rio Grande will suffer the severe consequences projected by the State Engineer fact sheet:curtailment and/or costly litigation that may result in severe and unpredictable shocks to the economy and water supply for agricultural and municipal users in the middle and lower Rio Grande.
The Legislature’s choice is simple, but legislators appear unaware they are making that choice. They must fund proactive compact compliance or fund the consequence of not doing so: another high-stakes, risky round of Texas v. New Mexico SCOTUS litigation. With the current national political situation, SCOTUS litigation with Texas seems particularly fraught. The stars seem to be aligned for Texas.
Call to Action
The Senate Finance Committee is the only hope for funding Middle Rio Grande Active Water Resources Management. The State Engineer requested $500,000 for new staff positions to do this work. The Water Advocates are requesting an additional $2 million in non-recurring funds to accelerate this essential work.
The Senate Finance Committee must agree to this funding within the next week or so. Please call your Senator, Senate officers, and the Senate Finance Committee members to ask the Senate to provide the OSE/ISC with the resources they need to protect the Middle Rio Grande. Tell them why they should support this funding. It’s essential to:
Prevent Costly Litigation
Maintain Local Control
Protect Agricultural & Municipal Water Supplies
The Legislative Toolkit at nmwateradvocates.org will be helpful. Use the links and sample language there to find your Senator’s contact information and help you structure your communication. Time is short.
Please act now.
Glossary
Acre-Foot – A unit of volume used to measure large-scale water resources. One acre-foot equals the volume of water required to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot (approximately 325,851 gallons).
Active Water Resources Management (AWRM) – A New Mexico program authorized by the Legislature in 2003 (Section 72-2-9.1 NMSA 1978) granting the State Engineer additional authority to manage water use, enforce water rights priorities, and ensure compliance with interstate compacts.
Adjudication – A legal process to determine and confirm the extent and priority of water rights. In New Mexico, adjudications take decades to complete, prompting the Legislature to grant the State Engineer provisional management powers under AWRM.
Bureau of Reclamation – A federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior that oversees water resource management, particularly in the western states. In the Rio Grande context, it manages reservoirs, irrigation projects, and other infrastructure.
Cumulative Water Delivery Debit or Credit – A cumulative tally of how much water a region has underdelivered (debit) or overdelivered (credit) annually since compact accounting began in 1940.
Curtailment – A restriction or reduction in water use imposed to prevent overuse and maintain required flows or deliveries under a compact or other legal agreement. If New Mexico violates the Rio Grande Compact, curtailment of water rights may result.
Depletion – Water lost from a system through evaporation, consumption by crops, consumption by riparian vegetation, etc., so that it is no longer available for downstream use. Under the Rio Grande Compact, annual accounting is based on river water supplies and the depletion of the river flows measured downstream over the calendar year.
Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) – A water management district in southern New Mexico responsible for delivering irrigation water below Elephant Butte Reservoir. It was completed in 1916.
Elephant Butte Reservoir – A large reservoir on the Rio Grande near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Elephant Butte Dam is the first constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation. It holds the Lower Rio Grande’s entire surface water supply.
Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) – A New Mexico state agency charged with ensuring New Mexico’s compliance with interstate water compacts, developing water plans, and protecting the state’s water interests. The author of the blog post formerly served as Director of the ISC.
Lower Rio Grande – Generally refers to the stretch of the Rio Grande below Elephant Butte Reservoir in southern New Mexico, extreme southwest Texas, and Mexico to a point about 100 miles downstream from El Paso. Users in this area rely on the river for agriculture and other water needs.
Middle Rio Grande – The portion of the Rio Grande from the Los Alamos highway bridge to Elephant Butte Dam. This region includes Albuquerque, surrounding municipalities, and agricultural areas within the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD).
Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) – A political subdivision of the State of New Mexico that manages irrigation, drainage, and flood control in the Middle Rio Grande Valley. Its operations impact water deliveries downstream.
New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (OSE) / State Engineer – The New Mexico state agency tasked with overseeing water rights administration, dam safety, and compliance with interstate compacts. The State Engineer is the chief water official in New Mexico and was granted additional powers under AWRM to enforce priority administration.
Otowi Bridge – A key river-gauging station near Los Alamos, New Mexico, used in Rio Grande Compact accounting to measure the flow of the river and determine delivery obligations for the Middle Rio Grande.
Rio Grande Compact – A 1938 agreement allocating the waters of the Rio Grande among Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. It is ratified by Congress and the involved states and enforced by the U.S. Supreme Court. The compact sets specific delivery requirements for the Middle and Lower Rio Grande, with limits on allowable “water debt.”
San Juan-Chama Project – A federal project that diverts water from the San Juan River Basin (part of the Colorado River system) into the Rio Grande Basin. This imported water is used in the Middle Rio Grande to supplement local municipal and MRGCD irrigation supplies.
SCOTUS – An acronym for the Supreme Court of the United States. SCOTUS has ultimate authority to interpret and enforce interstate compacts. It presides over water-related disputes between states, including those involving the Rio Grande Compact.
The inconvenient truth is New Mexico’s economic well-being depends critically upon water. We are already in one of the driest periods in the last millennium. The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources projects about 25% less water availability within the next 50 years due to climate change. With increased pumping because of drought, groundwater levels across most of the State are dropping, in some cases to the point of running out.
These statewide issues foretell slow train wrecks and do need attention. However, there is one water issue in the Middle Rio Grande that is urgent, potentially a fast train wreck. This article describes that urgent issue.
What’s happening?
The 2023 Rio Grande Compact data shows that New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande (MRG) region (Los Alamos Highway to Elephant Butte Reservoir) has again consumed more than its legally allotted share of the river’s flow. We have been regularly failing to deliver sufficient water to Elephant Butte Reservoir as required to meet our obligations to downstream water users (see cumulative balance graph).
For more than a decade, the trend has been downward. This past year the shortfall was 29,400 acre-feet (about 9.6 billion gallons). Our cumulative debt is now 121,500 acre-feet. At 200,000 acre-feet debt, we violate this three-state treaty (CO, NM, TX).
So why worry?
For years, water users downstream south of Elephant Butte Reservoir have not received their legally entitled share of the river’s flow. Both those southern New Mexicans and Texans downstream are rightfully unhappy.
Projecting forward with the 2023 shortfall, the MRG would reach the Compact violation at the end of 2026.
New Mexico is still litigating toward a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the twelve-year-old lawsuit concerning deliveries southward from Elephant Butte Reservoir to Texas. This lawsuit has already cost New Mexico taxpayers statewide about 80 million dollars, and counting.
Unless ongoing excess water uses are curtailed, the MRG’s average annual under-deliveries suggest that New Mexico will clearly violate the Compact. This would surely lead to an additional lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court. This time, the lawsuit and likely adverse ruling would add costs far beyond what we’ve endured thus far during the Lower Rio Grande lawsuit.
Even worse, any potential adverse judgement could involve serious consequences to New Mexico and MRG water users: a large monetary penalty, requirements to provide years of over-deliveries thereby depriving the MRG users of water, and/or federal court control over our use of water. It’s a hammer hanging over our heads.
We need to act now!
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Without a doubt we must reduce our over-use of MRG water to reverse the cumulative downward trend. This will take prompt hard work, and shared sacrifices.
It is in the vital interests of we, the MRG water users – big agricultural and water utility agencies, smaller agencies, community organizations, individuals – to work together immediately. Rather than let the State Engineer direct a potentially lopsided solution, or worse, have him do nothing, we should act –come together and collaboratively determine an agreement on how each of us will manage our uses to achieve our Compact obligations. Usage reductions should be sufficient, equitable, and designed to minimize the overall impacts. Of course, we must establish management strategies that will implement the agreement throughout the future years. We need to act now!
Bob Wessely has worked with and led the Water Assembly, now Water Advocates, for twenty-five years. Partnering with the Middle Rio Grande Council of Governments, the Assembly coordinated the planning process that resulted in the 2004 MRG Regional Water Plan.
In Bob’s previous 30-year career, he co-founded and served as Technical Director of SciSo, Inc., an Albuquerque software system engineering and management consulting firm supporting diverse industries nationwide. Although Bob holds a PhD in Theoretical, Solid-State Physics, at heart he is a systems engineer who enjoys finding solutions for problems important to NM and its communities, especially water.
Water managers along the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) and across New Mexico increasingly feel as if they are staring into an abyss of water shortages for increasing numbers of users who depend on water supplies for drinking, for economic growth, and even for the survival of our present-day economy.
The reliable supply of NM’s surface water to our streams, rivers, lakes, irrigation systems, and other critical water needs depends primarily on winter and early spring accumulations of mountain snow.
As we have experienced in recent years, climate warming increasingly causes the over-winter loss of snowpack, markedly reducing the total annual water supplies available and causing snowmelt runoffs earlier in the spring before crops have had sufficient time to develop to when they could benefit from earlier watering.
Couple these changes to the long tendency along the Rio Grande and across NM to over-use surface water supplies. For example, early in the 1800s the annual water supply of the Rio Grande was declared to be fully allocated. Then, with the drought of 1888, it was then declared to be over allocated, a condition that is unchanged today. And we have added more and more water users over time.
With climate warming also producing changes in global atmospheric circulation patterns, future projections forecast that NM will become increasingly dryer due to total region-wide reductions in snowpack and increased water loss due to increasing evaporation rates.
In an attempt to have equitable water supplies from the Rio Grande for Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as addressing US treaty requirements to Mexico, the three states signed the Rio Grande Compact, which was then ratified by Congress in 1939.
Today, the claim that NM is and has long been shorting the agreed-to water supply deliveries to Texas is awaiting a final US Supreme Court decision. The original terms of the Compact effectively caused additional limits on the surface water supply available to MRG users. The final court decision might further constrain the MRG supply.
To fill the gap in limited surface water supplies, communities and individuals have increasingly depended on pumping groundwater to address their need for water. Today, many of NM’s groundwater aquafers are nearing depletion.
MRG water supplies have been augmented by diversion of water from the San Juan River in the upper Colorado River basin into the Rio Chama and then into the Rio Grande. Here it is important to recognize that the effects of climate warming are similarly affecting water supplies across the entire southwest into California as the Colorado River and San Juan River are seeing reduced volumes as well.
Multistate negotiations on how climate-driven water supply shortages from the Colorado river will be distributed to all of the affected southwest states are ongoing with no permanent plan in sight. How that final future plan will affect San Juan River diversions to the Rio Grande is unknown, but in recent years that diversion has been short of the originally anticipated supply.
How best to address the increasing water supply shortages across NM is an open question.
Can the many and different water users within each of NM’s river basins and water management areas somehow reach agreements on how best to equitably share these shortages, as has become the custom for over 100 years along NM’s acequia communities?
As a start, the Water Advocates for NM and MRG are working with water managers along the MRG, including the NM Interstate Stream Commission, the MRG Conservancy District, Bernalillo County, ABCWUA, the US Bureau of Reclamation, and others to start planning for our shortened mutual water supplies.
The NM Interstate Stream Commission is hosting several Water Planning Open Houses to hear water related concerns from communities across the state as first step to draft the rules and regulations for updated regional water planning. We encourage you to attend these meetings and make your voice heard. Without accurate information and community engagement, the abyss will only grow. Let’s back away from the abyss and create a sustainable water future for New Mexico and the Middle Rio Grande.
On April 9, 2024, I witnessed amazing progress in local governments’ approaches to water policies crucial for New Mexico’s future. Bernalillo County elected officials and staff clearly acknowledged in new amendments to a draft high-level plan that New Mexico and the Middle Rio Grande are in an acute water crisis and that water is a Bernalillo County land use constraint. This marks the first official acknowledgment of hydrologic reality in Bernalillo County in a long time.
The County’s sustainability director emphasized the importance of rural communities, farms, and public green spaces as core Bernalillo County values that are crucial to sustainability. Three elected County Commissioners voiced their active support and encouragement.
This progress is significant. I believe the April 9 hearing may mark a tipping point for the Middle Rio Grande’s progress to face its water future.
The Governor and the Legislature Step Back. However, our Governor diverted the attention of the 2024 Legislature in facing New Mexico’s water future. She demanded they authorizing borrowing half a billion dollars to support a private sector badwater treatment scheme. This move, supported by the House Appropriations and Finance Committee chair and vice-chair, failed. The 2024 Legislature stopped the water policy and actions momentum that they created by passing the 2023 Water Security Planning Act. This year, Legislative Finance Committee staff were justifying not recommending funding to implement this landmark new law by saying the work done under the old 1987 law was unproductive. It felt like one step forward and two steps back.
Despite having billions of dollars available, the 2024 Legislature allocated less funding to the Interstate Stream Commission’s water planning program than in 2023. It also appropriated only half of the funds requested to implement the 2019 Water Data Act and nothing to fund drilling aquifer research and monitoring wells allowing us to leverage available federal funding that will soon expire.
Neglected Priorities. Recently, I learned that valued State Engineer professional staff were considering quitting because they lack basic computer hardware capable of running sophisticated hydrology software models and tools. Office of the State Engineer computer servers are incapable of handling the staff’s routine work and are a serious hinderance to their productivity.
Their request for computers didn’t make it into the Governor’s budget, indicating that someone, undoubtedly a budget official, denied it. Who made this decision? Why? My diagnosis: New Mexico State finance officials do not know what they do not know – that water has become an acute problem demanding a solution if our descendants are to have water for their future lives in New Mexico. The bean counters apparently think our water problems are only squabbles. In fact, growing aridity and gross water overuse threatens New Mexico’s existence as home for the young and future generations of New Mexicans.
It’s up to us, as water advocates, to support Bernalillo County’s work and demand that the State of New Mexico do what is right based on the science and data in the authoritative reports previously cited. The perspectives publicly expressed by Bernalillo County elected officials and staff are essential for a thriving future in the Middle Rio Grande. However, the Governor and legislative finance committees’ pursuit of funding for flashy projects while denying state staff the basic tools they require to do their jobs is wrong.
Progress, Momentum and Tipping Points
Despite my disappointment with the 2024 Legislature’s water budget failure and Executive branch’s disinformation, I draw encouragement from Bernalillo County’s responsiveness to truth and data as described above.
Portales officials disregarded the same groundwater research that caused Clovis officials to act.
Building Local Solutions. We must learn from the successes of NM Water Ambassador Dr. Ladona Clayton’s remarkable achievements over the last decade leading the Ogallala Land & Water Conservancy, created by Curry County and the City of Clovis to secure water for their economy by gaining the willing cooperation of many large groundwater pumpers. We need to learn from Portales and Eastern New Mexico University running out of water in 2023 and facing a very grim, water short summer of 2024 and forever, because Portales officials disregarded the same groundwater research that caused Clovis officials to act.
Please thank Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart for insisting on and funding the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources at NM Tech to resume their great water education program for legislators. This highly successful program of the early 2000s is now reestablished, after our former Governor Susanna Martinez stopped it in 2011. Senator Stewart is a fully aware top state elected official. I hope she will demand more attention during the Interim Committee to our water crisis, which will lead to adequate water funding and new or revised statutes identified by the Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force as state water policy priorities.
Most State Elected Leaders Are Unaware of New Mexico’s Water Crisis. I recently asked a candidate running for reelection to the New Mexico State Senate if they planned to attend the Water Leaders Workshop funded at Ghost Ranch on May 22-24. I have followed their good work as a New Mexico legislator for several terms. They said they did not understand the nuances. To us it is just basic facts of New Mexico’s crisis, such as gross water overuse everywhere and Portales running out of water in 2023, that that they do not know. They committed to attend.
Take Action. I implore everyone to amplify this message. Contact your State Senator and State Representative to urge them to educate themselves about New Mexico’s water challenges by attending the Ghost Ranch workshop.
Additionally, reach out to Legislative Finance Committee/House Appropriation and Finance Committee Chair Nathan Small and Vice-Chair Meredith Dixon. Tell them to fund water basics and to recognize the urgency of the crisis we face. Water cannot wait. The House Appropriations and Finance Committee’s and the Legislative Finance Committee’s long-standing refusals to fund water management and planning and their denial of New Mexico’s acute water crisis must stop.
Water flowing down the Rio Grande that is legally owned by and destined for Lower Rio Grande water users is being intercepted and consumed in the Middle Rio Grande.
Figure 1. The Middle Rio Grande’s Plunge Into Compact Water Delivery Debt
