News and Brews talks water, climate change – NM Political Report

One of the biggest and most important challenges for New Mexico in the upcoming years will be dealing with how climate change impacts water availability in the state. That was one of the key messages at a panel discussion hosted by NM Political Report on Thursday as part of its News and Brew live event […]

One of the biggest and most important challenges for New Mexico in the upcoming years will be dealing with how climate change impacts water availability in the state.

That was one of the key messages at a panel discussion hosted by NM Political Report on Thursday as part of its News and Brew live event series.

NM Political Report Environment Reporter Hannah Grover moderated a discussion with Daniel Timmons, the Wild Rivers Program Director with Wild Earth Guardians, and Page Pegram, the Rio Grande Bureau Chief with the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission.

“One way or another we need to reduce the amount of water in irrigated agriculture,” Timmons said, of the annual deficit of water in New Mexico. He said the current process of “trying to do this on an annual basis” was not going to solve the problem.

He said this needs to be done in a “smart” and “equitable” way, including finding more low-water-use crops for farmers.

Pegram said there are a few different tools to address this, some that could be done immediately and others that would take other action.

“We can manage our reservoirs differently,” she said. 

She noted that reservoirs in the higher elevation and cooler northern New Mexico are more efficient than Elephant Butte, which has high levels of evaporation. And storing water underground in aquifers was another option.

“There’s no evaporation underground,” she said.

Changing what water can be stored in which aquifer would take an act of Congress.

She said that the state is committed to working with all stakeholders to reduce water use in New Mexico.

“If that means developing water shortage agreements… we’re committed to doing that in a fair and equitable way,” she said.

The federal government is heavily involved in water issues throughout the western United States, including New Mexico. The largest part of thai is the Rio Grande Compact, which the federal government ratified in 1939 as an agreement on how to allocate Rio Grande water between Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

In recent years, this has become a bone of contention, with Texas filing a lawsuit against New Mexico.

“The complaint in the lawsuit wasn’t even about the compact itself, it was what happens beyond the compact,” Pegram said. The issue related to groundwater pumping south of Elephant Butte; water stored in Elephant Butte is considered Texas’ water.

The three states came to an agreement, but the federal government stepped in and said they needed to be involved in the process. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court backed the federal government.

“Now we’re almost back to square one. It’s kind of ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous catch-22 situation,” Pegram said.

She noted that the state is currently 128,000 acre-feet in debt to Texas, and that debt continues to grow. Once that debt hits 200,000 acre-feet, New Mexico would find itself in more hot water.

Timmons said one problem is that New Mexico does not manage water in the same way as other Western states.

“The State Engineer has never enforced water rights in the middle Rio Grande,” Timmons said, saying that the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District has never proven how much water it is entitled to.

Pegram agreed, but said, “Just wait.”

The panel discussed other issues, including the Rio Grande running dry, the role of sedimentation in the Rio Grande ecosystem and the role of snowpack versus that of monsoons in water issues.