The Driest Year on Record
Where the Middle Rio Grande’s Water Debt Stands
The State of New Mexico and the Middle Rio Grande began this year 132,000 acre-feet in the red in Elephant Butte water deliveries, with a 68,000 acre-feet margin before violating the Rio Grande Compact’s maximum water delivery debt. Underdeliveries are cutting deeply into that margin.
2026 is the driest year on record through July. Last winter’s snowpack failed, the hottest March ever measured melted it early, and much of it soaked into dry ground. The January through July Rio Grande streamflow volume that supplies all uses from Cochiti Dam to 80 miles south of El Paso was 208,500 acre-feet, twenty percent below the previous worst.
The Interstate Stream Commission’s July report describes 87 miles of dry riverbed between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte — 11 miles in the Albuquerque reach, 29 in Isleta, 47 in San Acacia. The dry Albuquerque reach would be longer except that ABCWUA’s South Valley wastewater treatment plant outfall[1] restarts streamflow with effluent that all comes from groundwater.
Those 87 river miles are dry because demands on the river exceed its water. Channel drying did not stop the demands.
Elephant Butte Reservoir is 1.3 percent full, with 27,000 acre-feet. Rio Grande streamflow entering the Middle Rio Grande is 480 acre-feet per day. None is being delivered. Daily inflows are currently accumulating at about 200 acre-feet per day. Elephant Butte evaporation losses are 50 acre-feet a day, so Middle Rio Grande’s water delivery shortfall is growing by about 250 acre-feet per day.
Prior and paramount lands of the six Middle Rio Grande pueblos are receiving the only surface water deliveries. These lands are irrigated with water that federal agencies have stored in Rio Chama reservoirs, without regard to Rio Grande rules or the Texas Commissioner’s objections, to meet the pueblos’ time immemorial water rights. The Compact does not affect the rights of the pueblos, but their water is accounted as an indistinguishable part of the Middle Rio Grande’s share.
Elephant Butte Reservoir is 1.3 percent full, with 27,000 acre-feet
New Mexico’s year-to-date water deliveries to Elephant Butte Reservoir were short by about one-third through July, with 37,000 acre-feet underdelivery of the Lower Rio Grande’s share of the record low inflow. Figure 1 shows today’s debt has been accumulating since 2010. Click the graphic. An interactive version of the chart will open. Go back to return to the article.
How 2026 Could End
If the August shortfall is 8,000 acre-feet, New Mexico will be about 45,000 acre-feet short with four months to go. Figure 2 shows traces for ten historical years that fell closest to cumulative underdelivery through August of 45,000 acre-feet. The median year-end underdelivery was 20,000 acre-feet. Most years improved over their last four months. 1962, 1997, and 2013 ended with large annual over-deliveries due to strong monsoons and winter gains. The other seven years[2] ended between 8,000 and 69,000 acre-feet short. Click the graphic to load an interactive web version.
New Mexico[3] will violate the Rio Grande Compact Article VI if the year-end underdelivery exceeds 68,000 acre-feet. A 68,100 acre-foot underdelivery would be almost the worst of any dry year since modern Compact accounting began in 1949. Among the driest third of years ranked by the volume of water shared between the Middle and Lower Rio Grande regions, only 2003 and 1951 were worse.
Under a more optimistic assumption, another 13,000 acre-feet of net underdelivery for August through December would end the year 50,000 acre-feet behind, leaving New Mexico a margin of 18,000 acre-feet in 2027. Three years since 2010 had a shortfall worse than 50,000 acre-feet. Eight of the last sixteen years ended with a larger annual shortfall greater than 18,000 acre-feet.
A Dry Year Can End Well, but 2026 Looks Different
A dry year alone does not explain a shortfall. Required water deliveries to Elephant Butte scale with the inflows that must be shared. Thirty-one of the last seventy-two years fell behind and still finished the year even or ahead. Three water sources account for most recoveries.
- Monsoon stormwater from the Middle Rio Grande’s dry and seasonal tributaries.
- November and December releases from the Rio Chama reservoirs. The delivery obligation on stored water was booked when it was stored. Water released and delivered after the end of October counts fully, except for seepage losses in transit.
- San Juan-Chama water that Albuquerque and other contractors release to replace what their wells take from the river. It passes Otowi as imported water, so it adds nothing to what we owe, and arrives at Elephant Butte as a delivery.
None of the three is available to us now. The monsoon to date has failed. Little or no prior and paramount water will remain after the irrigation season to be released. The San Juan-Chama replacement water would add to November and December deliveries, but will river flows recover enough to carry the water downstream?
Why Can’t the Water Get Through
Those 87 river miles are dry because demands on the river exceed its water. Channel drying did not stop the demands. Through a hot, rainless spring and summer the crops, the bosque, and everybody’s wells kept drawing. The shallow water table beneath the river and the valley kept falling.
Large volumes of any monsoon precipitation will be absorbed by desiccated lands and thirsty vegetation before the river sees any. Before water that reaches the river can be delivered to Elephant Butte, inflows and runoff must refill the dry channel and the groundwater underneath and beside it. We can’t count on winter flows either. The Rio Grande as it leaves its southern Colorado headwaters near Del Norte is running about 154 cubic feet per second, roughly 20 percent of normal.
What Can New Mexico Actually Do
Diversions and depletions can be managed.
March through June is when the river runs, when more of the year’s outcome is decided than in any other season. It is also the only season in which the state has real administrative leverage. Four mechanisms need work.
- Administer diversions during snowmelt runoff and strong monsoons so the Lower Rio Grande’s share gets through.
- Maintain the river channel to move water. Fix the poor channel conditions that increase losses.
- Use the Low Flow Conveyance Channel.
- Remove invasive vegetation like salt cedar and Russian olive.
None of these are cheap or easy. All require State investment in New Mexico water resource management and State water agency capacity. All are cheaper than a Compact violation, litigation, decree, penalty, and enforced compliance under the never-ending jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court. A violation changes things, forever.
The Bill Comes Due in 2027
Governor Susana Martinez, 2011-2018, decimated New Mexico’s water supply management agencies’ staff and budgets. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, 2019-2026, didn’t support the modernization and capacity the agencies require to fulfill essential water supply management jobs for which only the State has the authority and resources. The State water agenda under her leadership has focused on cleaning up fracking wastewater and desalting brackish groundwater as new supplies for new industries rather than our urgent needs for better stewardship.
Governor Lujan Grisham’s ‘new water’ will not deliver an acre-foot into Elephant Butte
The new governor and the 2027 Legislature inherit this mess. New water will not deliver an acre-foot into Elephant Butte. Compliance requires the unglamorous but available solution: water agencies staffed and funded to administer the river. We needed those before the horse escaped the barn. We’ll require them after.
Comprehension and courage to meet the moment? Or continued neglect? The new governor and the 2027 Legislature have one session to show us which before the Middle Rio Grande crosses into water bankruptcy, litigation, imposed solutions, and the never-ending supervision of the U.S. Supreme Court.
[1] The Southside Water Reclamation Plant outfall is the Rio Grande’s 3rd largest tributary by annual volume.
[2] 1951 −68.7, 2012 −41.8, 2021 −30.8, 1978 −28.2, 2016 −20.6, 1954 −18.8, 2025 −8.0.
[3] The State of New Mexico owns and is legally responsible for the Middle Rio Grande water delivery debt, even though that debt is made in the Middle Rio Grande
Credits: Jonathan Galindo, a New Mexico Water Data intern employed by the Bureau of Geology, digitized the Interstate Stream Commission’s online historical compact data images and compiled the data that made this article possible. All interpretations are the author’s. The Bureau of Geology is expected to publish the data set in the NM Water Data Catalog soon.