Shayne Franzoy, a fourth generation Hatch Valley farmer, can remember catching largemouth bass as a youngster in Elephant Butte Irrigation District canals.
“I used to fish in there when I was a kid,” Franzoy said as
he piloted a big red Ford Expedition through a corner of the valley his
family has farmed for nearly a century. “Now there’s no water at all.”
It is a nervous planting season.
With little Rio Grande irrigation water for the third
straight year, the farming valleys that stretch across southern New
Mexico from Elephant Butte Reservoir to the Texas border hum with the
sound of irrigation pumps, pulling up groundwater to wet the fields. But
it is a poor substitute for Rio Grande water, posing long-term
problems.
“The guys that can pump will pump,” said valley farmer Dino Cervantes. “The guys that can’t pump will suffer.”
On a high field on the Hatch Valley’s eastern edge, a crew
working for Franzoy is installing a drip irrigation system, something
he’s done on most of his land in an effort to fight off drought. Pumps
at the end of the field pull up groundwater, pushing it through the
irrigation system and out beneath the crops.
In other fields nearby, crews are planting onions and chiles
– the valley’s famous Hatch green chiles. But with a drought lingering
for more than a decade, capped by three particularly brutal years,
Franzoy is worried.
The canals that usually supply clear, clean Rio Grande water
to one of New Mexico’s most storied and agriculturally productive
regions remain bone dry a month into the irrigation season. With a
meager snowpack in the mountains to the north, the forecast calls for
just 39 percent of average runoff on the Rio Grande.
For farmers like Franzoy, pumping groundwater to keep the crops alive is the only option. But it’s not a very good one.
In the Hatch Valley (more properly called the “Rincon Valley,” but Hatch
is the name that sticks) groundwater has dropped an average of 3 feet
in the past three extreme drought years, according to an analysis by
Erek Fuchs, groundwater resources manager for the Elephant Butte
Irrigation District.
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