Drought worsens for chile farmers

Rio Grande at Hatch (John Fleck photo)

Drought conditions have gone “from bad to worse to worst,” southern New Mexico’s chile farmers were told Monday as they braced for what looks like the worst irrigation season on record in southern New Mexico. “We’re really hurting,” said Jerry Franzoy, a member of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District’s board of directors and a third-generation chile farmer in the state’s famed Hatch Valley. Valley farmers grow a range of crops, including onions, corn and wheat. But the valley’s fame comes from its chile. Some 35 area farmers gathered Monday morning at the Hatch Community Center for the annual irrigation district growers meeting. The key message: In the third consecutive year of extreme drought, deliveries of Rio Grande water for their crops will be the lowest in nearly a century of irrigation district operations. “This is a pretty dismal prospect,” said Phil King, hydrologist for the irrigation district. Spring runoff into Elephant Butte Reservoir, the source of the farmers’ water, could be as low as 5 percent of average, King said. The resulting available water supply is the lowest since Elephant Butte operations began in 1916, according to King. “This is new territory for all of us,” he told the farmers. The Hatch farmers are not alone. Ninety-seven percent of New Mexico was classified as being in “severe drought” or worse in the most recent weekly federal Drought Monitor. Communities in northeast New Mexico have been running short of water, while on the Pecos River a legal battle has broken out between two groups of farmers over who is entitled to scarce water. Across New Mexico, the past three years have been the warmest in more than a century of record-keeping and the driest since the 1950s...more