Water and Weather Realities Face New Mexico Farmers

For Immediate Release 11/8/2011

Contact:  Elephant Butte Irrigation District (575) 526-6671

Water and Weather Realities Face New Mexico Farmers

      The realities of short and long range scientific weather prognostications don’t stop farm families from praying for rain while planning for drought.  During a series of meetings with food, feed and fiber growers in the Mesilla and Hatch Valleys water resources engineer, Phillip King, told growers  that 2011 “was a most unusual year” in the annals of recorded climatology.  In addition to having a dramatic impact on irrigation in the state, the “extraordinary” drought hit every area of New Mexico including the substantial pasture lands used for feeding livestock and wildlife.

     Last winter close-to-normal snows came to the Wolf Creek Pass area of southern Colorado, usually a great harbinger for farmers downstream who count on that melted snowpack for vital irrigation water for a wide variety of crops. That area is known to produce “the most snow in Colorado” and last year was a pretty good year for snowpack in the Upper Rio Grande Watershed according to records. The melted snow flowed east down the Continental Divide and into the San Luis Valley of Colorado.  The nation’s fourth longest river next drops into New Mexico bringing life-giving moisture to the high desert.  Then at the beginning of 2011 something happened to that water on the way to the Otowi gauge.  That’s the water measuring station near the Rio Grande’s confluence with the Rio Chama in New Mexico.  An unwanted trifecta of warm weather, constant winds and the sudden end of snowfall sucked the very life out of a big chunk of this important water supply.  Somewhere along the way to Elephant Butte Reservoir something like 200,000 acre feet of water just disappeared in drought-escalated losses.

      King told farmers that compared to 2011 climatological patterns “could look the same” for 2012.   In addition, the expected summer “monsoon” season did not develop in New Mexico in any significant way.  During a series of meetings with agricultural producers in Hatch, Las Cruces and Anthony the message was straightforward.  “It is prudent at this point to plan for a short water season,” King said of 2012.  But he also emphasized that weather patterns can be predictably unpredictable. 

      EBID Treasurer-Manager, Gary Esslinger, said the district’s board of directors is actively working to cut back on expenses and to find creative solutions to deal with the effects of the on-going drought.  He told farmers in Las Cruces that in the 33 years he’s worked for EBID he has never seen such a water dilemma.  “Our business is surface water delivery” and the drought changes the way the district does its job.  “It’s been real difficult to turn our operation into basically a ground water monitoring operation”, Esslinger said.  This year he noted there was only one month of irrigation based on water the district had in storage at Elephant Butte Reservoir.  He said the organization has to do “more with less” and that the EBID board, recognizing the hardship on farmers, has reduced the assessment to irrigators by $5 per acre.  The farmer assessments pay for the operation of the 600 miles of canals and drainage systems.  He said the district has reduced operating costs in the last several years by $1 million.  Those reductions include a wage freeze, reduction of staff through attrition, cross training and water saving technologies.  He said communication between growers, their neighbors, ditch riders and the district irrigation office can also help to move water more efficiently during the next growing season.   He also urged growers to consider joining the Family Farm Alliance an organization that advocates for farmers and irrigation districts in the U.S. Congress and beyond.

      EBID attorney Samantha Barncastle also opened a proverbial briefcase full of legal cases that currently threaten the district including a recent lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Gary King against the Bureau of Reclamation.  Barncastle said the suit threatens the legal “operating agreement” between the EBID, El Paso County Water Improvement District #1 (EP1) and the Bureau of Reclamation.  The agreement divides the water for the Rio Grande Project between EBID and EP1. She said King’s lawsuit is a cynical attempt “to save you from yourself.”  She also noted that N.M. Attorney General’s lawsuit has stalled the current stream adjudication now underway along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico.  At a recent ceremony at the Elephant Butte Dam the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, Michael Connor, also said King’s lawsuit “is without merit.”

      Esslinger also told farm families that the EBID board of directors is also very concerned about an attempt by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to declare “critical habitat” for a small bird called the Southwest Willow Flycatcher from Caballo Lake to Leasburg State Park.  He said EBID is working with the Audubon Society of New Mexico and federal agencies to head off such a declaration which could have major impacts on the irrigation system throughout the Hatch and Rincon Valleys.  Barncastle noted that the EBID is seeking a creative, mutual solution in collaboration with Audubon New Mexico that would preserve wildlife habitat voluntarily “rather than under the hammer” of the federal government.

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